On March 16, 2026, a nationwide power blackout plunged Cuba into darkness, its crumbling grid collapsing under fuel shortages exacerbated by a U.S. oil embargo. Just hours later, President Donald Trump declared he would “take” Cuba, adding that he could “do anything I want with it.” In Havana, Daniel Montero, a journalist for Belly of the Beast, described the blackout as “sanctions literally killing people,” while Cuban-Americans across Latin America remained silent under Trump’s economic coercion.
This crisis is the culmination of 65 years of American policy, but the latest iteration is more ruthless and immediate. The U.S. has weaponized oil as a tool of subjugation, cutting off fuel imports for over three months since January 2026. Combined with Trump’s explicit demands to remove Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel — relayed directly to Havana’s envoys — the strategy is not just regime change by sanctions, but regime change by starvation.
The Guardian frames this as a potential “biggest economic changes in 67 years” moment for Cuba, but Democracy Now! captures the human reality. Montero details daily survival under outages: charging phones and fans with solar panels, bread vendors listening to voice mails in the dark. Meanwhile, Trump’s threats and State Department calls for “new people in charge” are received not as abstract warnings but as imminent invasion scripts. When a 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck on the same day, Cubans joked, “What else is going to happen?”
Trump’s policy diverges from past sanctions in its theatricality. The Obama-era “smart sanctions” regime was designed to target elites; Trump’s 2026 approach weaponizes basic survival. Fuel shortages have collapsed hospitals and food distribution, forcing even socialist hardliners to allow Cuban-American investment in private businesses. Yet the U.S. insists this is “liberation.” Cuban historian Sara Kozameh notes the irony: “They talk about democratizing us while suffocating us. It’s regime change through starvation.”
What this coverage omits is the geopolitical vacuum. Brazil and Mexico, once allies, have refused to fill the oil gap Trump’s embargo created. Democracy Now!’s Juan González notes that this silence reveals the limits of Latin American solidarity in an era of U.S. economic coercion. Where is the humanitarian aid? The IAEA’s warning that fuel shortages may delay medical treatments? The U.N. has issued concerns but no demands.
The next phase hinges on March 23, when Trump will hold a closed-door meeting with Cuban exiles in Miami. If he follows Marco Rubio’s lead, the U.S. could escalate to a naval blockade or direct support for internal dissidents. Conversely, if his isolationist cabinet (recently bolstered by Joe Kent’s resignation) gains traction, pressure might ease.