Cuba’s power grid fails as Trump lays claim to island
The blackout left the island’s 11 million people in darkness
What happened
Cuba’s aging electrical grid collapsed Monday, leaving the island nation of some 11 million people without power amid a U.S. oil blockade. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel last week blamed the U.S. embargo for Cuba’s economic problems, saying no oil shipments had arrived for three months. But in a national broadcast, he acknowledged for the first time that his government was in talks with the Trump administration to “identify the bilateral problems that need a solution.” President Donald Trump on Monday told reporters he believed he would have “the honor of taking Cuba.”
Who said what
“I think Cuba sees the end,” Trump said at the White House. “Taking Cuba in some form, yeah, taking Cuba — I mean, whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it.” The Trump administration’s opening demand in negotiations is Díaz-Canel’s ouster, The New York Times said, citing four people familiar with the talks. That would “topple a key figurehead while keeping in place the repressive Communist government,” giving Trump a “symbolic win” he can sell to the American people and “Cuban exile community,” though the lack of regime change would “likely disappoint many conservative Cuban exiles.”
Cubans “have grown accustomed to power outages,” Reuters said, but the current crisis “sparked a rare violent protest” over the weekend. The oil blockade has crushed tourism, fueled unaffordable gas prices, forced hospitals to ration care and left garbage piling up in the streets.
Article continues belowThe Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
What next?
Cuban Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga told NBC News in a clip broadcast Monday morning that Havana was “open to having a fluid commercial relationship with U.S. companies, also with Cubans residing in the United States and their descendants.” Government officials “had planned to announce the economic changes on an evening television program” but did not, the Times said, possibly as a “result of power outages.”
