The First Deputy Minister of Energy and Mines, Argelio Jesús Abad Vigoa, appeared this Thursday on the Round Table to attribute the Cuban electrical crisis exclusively to the oil embargo imposed by the Trump administration through the Executive Order 14380, signed on January 29, 2026.
However, the data shows that Cuba was facing an energy disaster of similar proportions long before that measure came into effect.
In front of the cameras, Abad Vigoa stated that "no ship with fuel acquired or purchased in the international market has docked at a Cuban port" in over three months, and that the country is lacking diesel, fuel oil, gasoline, aviation turbine fuel, and liquefied petroleum gas.
It estimated more than 1,400 MW of installed capacity ready to generate electricity —1,100 MW from distributed generation and 330 MW from engines in MOA, Patanas, and Mariel— which remains idle due to lack of fuel, causing an average daily deficit of 1,400 MW and between 1,800 and 1,900 MW during peak electricity hours.
The official himself admitted, without noticing the contradiction, that "if we had that fuel available at noon, there would be no blackout or we would have significantly lower levels of blackout, and during peak hours, the blackout levels would be 400, 500, 600 MW, which are manageable and can be distributed and planned in a different way."
That statement implies that, even with fuel, Cuba would continue to experience blackouts of hundreds of megawatts.
What the deputy minister deliberately omits is that the Cuban energy crisis is both prior and structural.
In October 2024, well before any measures by Trump, a total collapse of the National Electric System occurred, leaving over half the population without electricity for nearly 100 hours.
In December 2024, the deficits ranged between 1,070 and 1,570 MW daily. Between September and November 2025, the deficits reached between 1,800 and 2,147 MW, with power outages exceeding 20 hours in much of the country.
In December 2025, 97 distributed generation plants were already offline due to a lack of diesel and fuel oil, representing over 1,000 MW out of service, weeks before Trump's executive order came into effect.
The government itself acknowledged then that "2026 will be difficult, there will be blackouts".
The roots of the collapse are structural: the seven main thermoelectric plants are between 35 and 50 years old and operate with a availability rate of 35-45%, while the international standard exceeds 80%.
The energy sector received less than 10% of state investments between 2019 and 2024, while tourism accounted for 40%.
Cuba produces about 40,000 barrels of oil daily, less than half of its needs, and has been dependent on Venezuelan oil, the supply of which was already declining before 2026.
The Executive Order 14380 exacerbated an already existing crisis by causing Mexico —which accounted for 44% of Cuban oil imports, valued at 496 million dollars in 2025— to suspend shipments on January 9, 2026, and Venezuela to cease supplies following the capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3.
But presenting those measures as the sole cause amounts to ignoring decades of disinvestment and mismanagement of the electrical system by the dictatorship.
The Cuba Study Group estimates that the recovery of the Cuban electrical system would require between 8 billion and 10 billion dollars and between three and five years, a figure unattainable for an economy that the regime itself has driven to collapse.
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