The United States ambassador to Cuba, Mike Hammer, stated that “there is already a collapse” on the island, describing the energy and social crisis affecting the Cubans.
In an interview with broadcaster Enrique Santos, who has over 1.3 million followers on social media, the diplomat explained that the situation has exceeded the breaking point.
There is already a collapse. There is barely any electricity, especially in the provinces. Now Havana is experiencing what the rest of the country used to live through,” declared Hammer.
The head of the American mission in Havana recounted examples that reflect the extent of the deterioration:
"In Matanzas, in Camagüey, in Guantánamo, in Santiago, there are places where people go twenty hours a day without electricity. I spoke with individuals who leave the fan on to wake up at one or two in the morning, when the power returns, in order to cook or wash before it goes out again. It's heartbreaking."
Hammer warned that the national energy grid is collapsing and that the impact has already reached the capital, where power outages used to be less frequent and more controlled.
"When they let the Turkish barges go because they were not being paid, the problem was already on the horizon. The Turkish company decided that it would no longer provide service for free."
The statements confirm Washington's diagnosis of the Cuban situation: a structural collapse that can no longer be attributed to external factors, but rather to the internal exhaustion of the model.
Hammer: A diplomacy that listens to Cubans
Hammer's words are not theoretical; they arise from a field agenda that has taken him across the island to listen directly to the citizens.
In recent days, the diplomat visited Camagüey, Las Tunas, and Holguín, in a series of gestures that have combined symbolic closeness and political denunciation.
In Camagüey, on February 2nd, Hammer shared a video from the bell tower of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Candelaria, coinciding with the day of the city's patron saint.
"Here the bells ring in Camagüey! How beautiful!" he said, in a message interpreted as a call for hope and rebirth amidst the crisis.
One day later, in Puerto Padre (Las Tunas), he attempted to visit the activist Vladimiro Martín, who had been detained by State Security shortly before his arrival. In the video, Hammer talks to a child who informs him about the arrest of his parents and asks him:
"What do you want to be when you grow up? A doctor, an engineer, or president?" The moment, captured by the embassy's cameras, became a symbol of her diplomacy of closeness, grounded in human contact and respect for the everyday reality of Cubans.
More recently, in Holguín, he met with Monsignor Emilio Aranguren, to whom he gifted a replica of the Liberty Bell from Philadelphia in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States.
The gesture was interpreted as a reaffirmation of Washington's commitment to religious freedom and democratic values, in stark contrast to the authoritarianism of the regime.
Since arriving in Cuba, Hammer has walked through streets, temples, and neighborhoods to witness firsthand the collapse he describes.
His diagnosis in the interview with Santos encapsulates what he has observed during those visits: an exhausted country, devoid of energy, yet still filled with hope.
“There is already a collapse,” she said bluntly. And in that phrase—harsh, direct, yet spoken with empathy—echoed the same bells of Camagüey that just a few days ago were calling for the end of the old and a rebirth.
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