Cuba’s Energy Ministry announced Saturday night that the entire island was hit by another power outage, leaving more than 10 million people without power.
“A complete disconnection of the national electricity system has occurred. Steps for restoration have already begun to be carried out,” the ministry said in a post on X.
This comes days after Cuba endured its first nationwide power grid collapse on Monday since the United States began cutting off fuel supplies from Venezuela earlier this year.
Yesterday, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in a speech to international activists bringing humanitarian aid to Cuba that his government is aware that “an attack on Cuba may occur” and is preparing accordingly.
US President Donald Trump has spoken frequently about Cuba in recent weeks, predicting the imminent collapse of the country’s ruling communist government. On Monday, he wondered aloud whether he would ever have the “honor of occupying” the island.
“You know, I’ve been hearing about the United States and Cuba all my life, but when will the United States have the honor of occupying Cuba? That would be a great honor,” President Trump said from the White House. “I think we can somehow get Cuba, yeah, get Cuba — whether we liberate it or take possession of it, we can do whatever we want with it.”
Asked whether an operation to “occupy” Cuba would involve the same level of force that the United States used to detain Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January, the president declined to say.
President Díaz-Canel acknowledged in his national address last week that Cuba was in talks with the U.S. side to end the fuel embargo. Since then, the Cuban government has made it clear that it has no intention of negotiating its political system.
The country has been under a severe economic blockade from the United States since Cuban revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro overthrew the government of Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Cuba has survived severe economic instability in the past, including the 1991 “special period” when the communist government was cut off from its main source of foreign aid following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The current crisis is similarly bleak. Fuel shortages from Mexico and Venezuela have halted virtually all tourism to the island, disrupted education, cut hospital services and left farmers unable to market their produce.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
