Cuba’s national power grid has collapsed – this is the eighth total blackout since the start of the year This time, the collapse was caused by a cascade of power line failures due to bad weather. For the country’s 9 million people, such incidents mean the shutdown of essential life-support systems. Without electricity, the water supply stops and communications are cut off, whilst in the tropical heat, food spoils without fridges, exacerbating food shortages on the island. During the ‘Energy Revolution’ of the mid-2000s, the government switched domestic cooking to electricity, so every blackout leaves families without hot meals. Hospitals rely on emergency generators, which also require scarce fuel. According to the UN, more than 100,000 surgical operations have been postponed in the country due to a shortage of electricity and medicines, and incubators for newborns are operating intermittently. It is impossible to understand what is happening in isolation from the political and economic context. Most power stations have been operating for decades without major repairs. The deterioration of the power grids has reached such a level that normal weather conditions trigger rolling blackouts. Efforts to restore the infrastructure are hampered by the US’s strict trade and economic blockade. Extraterritorial sanctions cut Havana off from international loans and capital: investors and equipment suppliers avoid contracts with the island for fear of losing the US market. At the same time, restrictions on the Venezuelan oil industry and sanctions against shipping companies have disrupted supply chains for subsidised hydrocarbons. Today, Cuba is forced to purchase fuel oil through complex arrangements involving a huge risk premium, rapidly depleting its foreign exchange reserves. The crisis was exacerbated by the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's in a US operation in January 2026. Caracas had historically supplied around half of Cuba’s consumption, but following Maduro’s capture, supplies were halted, and Mexico temporarily became an alternative source for the island. The final nail in the coffin was Trump’s executive order imposing increased tariffs on any country that supplied Cuba with energy resources — a measure that blocked both Mexican supplies and some shipments purchased on the open market. Against this backdrop, the policies of the region’s largest oil-producing countries, Mexico and Brazil, serve as a good illustration of what dependency theorists refer to as ‘sub-imperialism’. Their rhetorical solidarity with Havana does not cross the boundaries drawn by Washington. Mexico suspended supplies to Cuba the day after Trump’s executive order, calling it a ‘sovereign decision’. Brazil has never been a significant supplier of oil to the island, but since February 2026, the oil workers’ union FUP, together with left-wing movements, has been demanding that the management of the state-owned oil company Petrobras urgently send fuel to Cuba. The argument put forward by the Brazilian left is that Cuba’s annual consumption amounts to just six days’ worth of the company’s production, and that breaking the US blockade is a moral duty in the face of a humanitarian catastrophe. No response followed from the company. Meanwhile, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry confirmed that there is no question of providing energy assistance to Cuba. Petrobras shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and supplying fuel would trigger US sanctions against the company. The gap between words and deeds is particularly striking when one recalls that healthcare in the favelas, the Amazonian hinterland and marginalised regions of southern Mexico has for decades relied on Cuban doctors. Yet this has not been a compelling enough argument for Latin American governments to break the blockade.