Cuba

Cuba is facing a cascading energy and humanitarian crisis in 2026, with US Executive Order 14380 — signed 29 January 2026 — imposing secondary tariffs on any country supplying Cuba with fuel, effectively extending US sanctions extraterritorially. The UNE national grid is forecasting deficits exceeding 1,700 MW at peak, leaving millions without power for twelve or more hours daily.

Cuba is a one-party socialist state under the Communist Party, governed since 2019 by President Miguel Díaz-Canel. The economy is heavily statised, dominated by GAESA (the military conglomerate), and has been under a US embargo since 1962. Fuel imports are the critical chokepoint: the island imports roughly 60,000-70,000 Barrels Per Day, almost entirely from Venezuela and Russia, and any disruption cascades immediately into power outages and food-supply failures. The UN Resident Coordinator assessed in April 2026 that approximately 2 million Cubans across 8 provinces require humanitarian assistance.

Cuba sits at the intersection of US-Russia rivalry, hemispheric energy politics, and an emerging diplomatic track mediated by the Holy See. The prisoner-release talks of March-April 2026 opened a narrow channel, but Washington simultaneously tightened secondary sanctions and Congress members pushed for a full licence purge. Whether the diplomatic track widens or collapses will define Cuba's near-term trajectory on energy, aid access, and political openness.