The Cuban government has said that it has run out of oil reserves under the ramped-up US oil embargo on the country, which has caused a devastating humanitarian crisis and widespread power outages across the country.
“We have absolutely no fuel oil, absolutely no diesel,” Vicente de la O Levy, Cuba’s minister of energy and mines, said on Wednesday, according to The New York Times. “In Havana, the blackouts today exceed 20 or 22 hours.” Cuba produces some oil domestically, but nowhere close to the level needed to stave off the crisis.
The Trump administration caused the crisis by ending Venezuelan oil shipments to the island nation following the US attack on the country to abduct President Nicolas Maduro and by pressuring Mexico to also end oil exports to Cuba and threatening tariffs.
At one point, the US issued an oil waiver for private companies in Cuba, but the measure brought no relief for the country’s state-run power grid. The US has also been ramping up the military pressure against Cuba, surging surveillance flights around the island as President Trump has been threatening to “take” the country.
On Thursday, Cuba said that it hosted CIA Director John Ratcliffe, the highest-level US official to visit the country since the blockade and pressure campaign began, and that he held talks with the country’s Interior Ministry.
“Following the request submitted by the US government that a delegation presided over by the CIA Director John Ratcliffe be received in Havana, the Revolutionary Directorate approved the realization of this visit and the meeting with its counterpart from the Ministry of the Interior,” the Cuban government said.
While there have been talks between the US and Cuba, it’s unclear what deal would satisfy the Trump administration as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is leading the policy, has made clear he wants regime change.
“You cannot change the economic trajectory of Cuba as long as the people who are in charge of it now are in charge of it. That’s what’s going to have to change because these people have proven incapable,” Rubio told Fox News this week. “I hope I’m wrong. We’ll give them a chance. But I don’t think it’s going to happen. I don’t think we’re going to be able to change the trajectory of Cuba as long as these people are in charge in that regime.”
