Cubans Get a Few Hours of Power a Day as U.S. Embargo Squeezes Oil and Medicine
Doctors say they cannot source lifesaving pediatric drugs, bread prices have risen tenfold this year, and Washington sanctioned Cuba's state bank on Thursday.
HAVANA — Cubans are living through long power blackouts and struggling to find medicine as a strict U.S. embargo and a new round of sanctions aim to pressure the island's Communist government, according to a CBS News report from Havana.
The Trump administration has made plain that it wants the Cuban regime gone. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the economic campaign is designed so that the government feels it has no escape valves. Many ordinary Cubans describe feeling the same way. A strict U.S. embargo on oil imports has left the electrical grid in a state of near-collapse. Most places on the island, Havana included, receive only a few hours of electricity a day, and often less than that.
The energy crisis, combined with crumbling infrastructure, has sent the price of basic goods soaring. At a bread line in one of Havana's more upscale neighborhoods, a woman buying several loaves for herself and friends said prices have risen tenfold this year. With a government salary of less than $20 a month, she said, she tries to stretch each baguette over at least two days.
The health system, once a point of national pride, is also under strain. CBS News saw parents lining up for care at a children's hospital, where doctors said they can no longer source critical, lifesaving drugs for pediatric patients. Some Cubans have turned to free, community-run pharmacies. Retiree Sara Emilia Marquez showed CBS News medicine that had been donated after her monthly prescription began arriving once every three months, if at all. Others buy from black-market street vendors.
The administration has stepped up its pressure in recent months. On Thursday it imposed new sanctions on Cuba's state-run bank, claiming the institution has ties to Iran. Cuba's foreign minister insists the bank is "absolutely legitimate" and calls the move collective punishment.
For the roughly two-thirds of Cubans employed by state entities, the sanctions are the latest obstacle to getting paid in usable money. Pensioners can wait hours to collect their government wages, and some say they go hungry.
Cuba has enacted a series of economic reforms aimed at opening up its private sector, but its leaders have said no one should expect political reform. They have shown some willingness to negotiate with the U.S. government, but talks currently appear to be at a standstill.
The standoff leaves ordinary Cubans caught between a government that will not change its political system and a U.S. policy that openly seeks to make daily life harder until it does. Neither side has signaled it is ready to move first, and for families in Havana the practical question each day is whether the lights, the pharmacy shelves and the bakery will hold out.
