Kenneth Glad
Essential services are struggling as shortages spread across the island. Years of economic decline and political isolation are now colliding in public view.
Cuba’s deepening fuel shortage is disrupting transport, electricity and ordinary routines.
According to Norwegian brodcaster NRK, petrol has become so scarce that filling a car can cost roughly 300 dollars, more than the broadcaster described as a typical Cuban’s annual income.
Power cuts have become part of daily life, while queues outside fuel stations have grown longer. The shortages have also brought visible anger.
Al Jazeera reported that protests broke out in parts of Havana after authorities acknowledged severe fuel problems and worsening blackouts.
Ståle Wig, a social anthropologist at the University of Oslo who has lived in Cuba and remains in contact with people there, told NRK:
“The United States has historically strong pressure on Cuba right now. There is no doubt that what the Trump administration wants to achieve in Cuba is regime change.”
Fuel shortages are reaching hospitals and schools
The crisis is now affecting services that Cuba has long presented as strengths of its political system. Hospitals are short of staff and medicine, while some children are receiving only limited schooling.
“The hospitals are understaffed and have no medicines. The children receive schooling once or twice a week, and they barely have teachers,” Wig said.
Reuters has also reported on public frustration linked to blackouts and fuel shortages.
The Cuban government has blamed much of the economic damage on U.S. sanctions and financial restrictions.
U.S. officials have instead pointed to state mismanagement, repression and the absence of deeper reform.
Cuba’s old standoff with Washington still matters
Cuba’s current hardship is tied to a long conflict with the United States. After Fidel Castro’s revolution in 1959, relations with Washington quickly deteriorated as Havana moved closer to the Soviet Union.
In 1961, a CIA-backed force of Cuban exiles tried to overthrow Castro during the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, according to Britannica.
The following year, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the Cold War close to nuclear conflict after Soviet missiles were placed on the island.
For decades, Soviet support helped Cuba obtain oil and supplies. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the island entered a severe economic downturn marked by shortages of food, fuel and electricity.
Venezuela later became an important supplier of subsidized oil, but that support weakened as Venezuela’s own economy deteriorated. Cuba has since faced growing difficulty securing the fuel and hard currency it needs.
State control remains while daily life worsens
According to Wig, Cuba’s leadership today is less driven by revolutionary ideology than by control over major economic interests:
“The authorities do business with major commercial interests, whether it is Russia, other countries or multinational hotel companies.”
According to Wig, people connected to the military, Communist Party and state apparatus have gained influence over valuable parts of the economy.
Ordinary Cubans, meanwhile, are facing fewer services, weaker purchasing power and shrinking trust in the authorities.
For most residents, the immediate question is practical: Whether buses will run, hospitals will have medicine, schools will open, and lights will stay on.
Sources: NRK, Reuters, Al Jazeera, Britannica
