Cubans Get 20 Minutes of Power at 3 a.m. — And Washington Calls That “Targeted Pressure”

(SeaPRwire) –

By: Julian Holbrooke

Sanctions architects in Washington love to talk of “targeted pressure” that spares ordinary people. That lie curdles in the dark of Havana apartments. There, 72-year-old Leidis Rodríguez leaps out of bed at 3 a.m. She boils beans the second the power flickers on. She shouts to her family to rouse, to rush through chores before the power cuts again. Those power bursts last 20 minutes sometimes. They come with no schedule, no warning. They follow blackouts that stretch 12, 30, even 48 hours long. The policy sold as a push for democratic change has turned daily life into a frantic race against a dying grid.

The Trump administration rolled out its tightened oil blockade on Cuba this past January. The public rationale was straightforward. It threatened secondary tariffs on any nation that sold oil to the island. Oil makes up nearly all of Cuba’s power generation supply. It paired that move with even more rigid, sweeping sanctions rules. The stated end goal was to pressure the Cuban government into enacting political change. Public reporting from the first weeks of the policy made one thing clear. The worst effects of the new rules were being felt by ordinary Cubans, not state officials. Administration talking points at the time insisted measures would not hit civilian populations. Spokespeople pointed to pre-existing grid strain as proof Cuba’s government bore sole blame for coming hardship. They noted blackouts had worsened over five prior years. Those earlier outages stemmed from crumbling energy infrastructure, long-running sanctions, and stalled domestic economic reforms.

The on-the-ground reality bears no resemblance to those carefully crafted talking points. Before the January measures, most blackouts were government-scheduled. Families knew outages would last two or three hours. They could plan work, meals, childcare around the predictable gaps. That predictability is gone. Outages now stretch 12 hours, 30 hours, longer with no warning. Last weekend marked the sixth island-wide total grid collapse this year. Public transit has ground to a halt. Cultural events are shuttered. Tourism, the country’s economic lifeline, has collapsed as operators pull out. The pullout has left 25,000 hospitality jobs vacant. Flights to the island are canceled on a regular basis. Official workdays have been shortened to match the lack of power. Medicine shortages have grown more acute. Food rots in unpowered refrigerators before families can eat it. Water stops pumping to rooftop tanks the second the grid goes down. Leidis Rodríguez’s daughter Yaimara Matos put it plainly. Every household drops whatever they are doing the second the grid hums back to life. Families scramble to wash, cook, iron, and cool off the second power returns. “What we used to do in 10 hours, we now have to do in two,” she said. Neighborhoods in Havana have seen protests after 48-hour blackouts. Residents bang pots and burn piled garbage in the streets. Families scrape by on small generators run a few hours a day. They install solar panels sent by relatives living abroad. Others buy rechargeable fans or solar-powered vehicles. Gasoline has become nearly impossible to find on the island. Some switch to wood-fired cooking, fill every plastic bottle with water when taps run. Lianet Barroso is one of those residents. She once cooked all her meals on a gas stove. Now she tends a wood fire for every dish. “Life for Cubans has become difficult, harsh and sad,” she said. The Cuban peso is plummeting against the dollar, inflation eating through savings fast. Many cannot even afford to buy food that may spoil before the power comes back on. None of this pressure lands on government officials. It falls entirely on people like 64-year-old Caridad Delgado. She now spends her evenings feeding her cat by rechargeable lamp light. The lamp was bought with remittances from her three children, who emigrated from the island. Months ago, she would have been watching her favorite soap operas at that hour. “There’s just too much anguish, too much desperation,” she said. “I try to carry on with life.”

This is not targeted, precision statecraft. It is collective punishment, sold to domestic political audiences with empty lies about sparing civilians. The regional resentment sparked by this cruelty will outlast any single U.S. administration’s time in office.

Author bio: Julian Holbrooke, an international relations analyst covering Western Hemisphere policy, contributing regular columns to major European daily newspapers.