Local News

Cuban President denounces the impact of the blockade on the worsening energy situation in the country 

14 May 2026
This content originally appeared on Granma - Official voice of the PCC.
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Photo: Osval

"The situation of the National Electric System has been particularly tense in recent days. A deficit of more than 2,000 MW is forecast for today during peak demand hours," stated Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and President of the Republic, on his social media account this Wednesday.
The Cuban president stated that this dramatic worsening has a single cause: "the genocidal energy blockade that the U.S. subjects our country to, threatening with irrational tariffs any nation that supplies us with fuel."
In this regard, he pointed out that this Wednesday, for example, the amount of power lost in Cuba due to fuel shortages caused by this criminal blockade reached 1,100 MW.
"The best demonstration of what we are saying is the significant improvement in service during the month of April. The arrival of just one fuel ship to a Cuban port, out of the minimum of eight needed each month, allowed us to reduce the deficit and, consequently, the blackouts, which, although they did not disappear entirely, were mitigated," he emphasized.
He also recalled that in recent days, U.S. media outlets serving the belligerent agenda of that country's federal agencies expressed bewilderment at the heroic resistance of the Cuban people and the firmness and unwavering unity of our government. "They have had to acknowledge that, despite the brutal measures of economic and energy strangulation decreed by the US, Cuba remains standing; it is not a failed state."
"They are thereby admitting that the crisis gripping us is the result of the severe economic war they are waging against us and the energy persecution."
In short, Díaz-Canel explained, what the spokespeople for the U.S. regime are trying to portray to the world as a direct consequence of mismanagement by the Cuban government is, in reality, the result of a perverse plan intended to push the people’s shortages and hardships to extreme levels.
"Neither the blockade imposed more than six decades ago, nor the 243 tightened measures imposed by the previous Trump administration, could destroy the Revolution."
That is why they adopted an executive order that completely blocks fuel supplies to Cuba and another that persecutes and penalizes those who trade or invest on the island. It is a perverse scheme whose main objective is to inflict suffering on the entire Cuban people, to hold them hostage and turn them against the government, the President stated.
In this regard, he recalled how the easing of some measures of the blockade a few years ago demonstrated, without a doubt, how much the people of Cuba and the United States, trade relations between the two countries, and the economic and social development of our nation could benefit from this draconian policy.
"A small group of far-right extremists, who have hijacked the policy toward Cuba and deliberately and cynically lie or spread misinformation about the Cuban reality, while demanding more suffocation and threats against our people, fear this improvement," he added.
"Our response remains the same: always open to dialogue on equal terms, we will continue to resist and build, increasingly convinced that it is up to us to overcome enormous difficulties through our own efforts, united as a nation, and resolute in facing the toughest challenges," Díaz-Canel