Endless Crisis In Cuba. President: “USA Is Strangling Us”

Cuba is experiencing a never-ending crisis. The conditions have lately become even worse: endless lines in front of stores are seen on the streets, and energy is being rationed. Gasoline and diesel fuel (used to generate electricity) are in short supply, and the rising price of the barrel certainly isn’t helping the situation. Venezuela and Mexico have sharply reduced hydrocarbon supplies and, until the situation improves, the government’s only recipe is rationing.

At the same time, inflation, especially in the food segment, is skyrocketing. The majority of the population can barely afford more than one meal per day. According to a report in the Italian newspaper Manifesto, the government said it does not have the funds to purchase food on the foreign market.

The economic, food, and social crises, in addition to the energy crisis and a traditionally inefficient economic system, are creating perhaps the worst crisis in this Caribbean country’s history.

Even worse are the consequences of the embargo. As Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in an interview with the Italian agency ANSA, “The United States is strangling us. They placed us under maximum pressure, in conditions of economic suffocation, in order to cause the collapse of the Revolution, to destroy the unity of the leadership and the people.”

According to the country’s leader, who replaced Raul Castro in 2018-2019, Cuba has failed to recover from the pandemic, and the tightening of the embargo under the Donald Trump administration has made the situation even worse.