Name: Trump Lets Cuba Receive Oil. Here's Why It Will Still Face Blackouts.
Uploaded: 2026-04-01T19:01:00Z
Duration: 3 min 21 s
Description: President Trump allowed a Russian oil tanker to arrive in Cuba, but WSJ explains how the island nation will likely face persistent blackouts because of deep problems with its energy grid.

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President Trump allowed a Russian oil tanker to arrive in Cuba, but WSJ explains how the island nation will likely face persistent blackouts because of deep problems with its energy grid. Photo: Yamil Lage/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

https://m.wsj.net/video/20260401/69ba0e34-0a2b-4516-8d0c-61bc53b7f448/1/hls/manifest-hd-wifi.m3u8

President Trump allowed a Russian oil tanker to arrive in Cuba, but WSJ explains how the island nation will likely face persistent blackouts because of deep problems with its energy grid.

Trump Lets Cuba Receive Oil. Here's Why It Will Still Face Blackouts.

Narrator: This Russian oil tanker has just arrived in Cuba. It's the country's first oil shipment in more than two months, and a relief from President Trump's oil blockade.

If a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem with it.

But the White House says its policy hasn't changed, and the tanker's 730,000 barrels of crude oil will not solve the energy crisis in Cuba, where people have endured seven island wide blackouts in the last year and a half alone. Here's why Cuba's energy grid keeps failing and how the US blockade has only made things worse.

Cuba's finished, they have a bad regime and they have very bad and corrupt leadership, and whether or not they get a boat of oil, it's not gonna matter.

Around 40% of Cuba's electric capacity comes from seven power plants, which run on oil and were built decades ago. Most of the plants have been operating far longer than their intended lifespan. They've also suffered from a persistent lack of maintenance, and they're entirely powered by Cuban crude oil, which is high in sulfur and other corrosive compounds. With all those challenges, Cuba's Grid produced 25% less electricity last year than in 2019, and the plant's frequent problems have a cascading effect. Because Cuba's grid is interconnected, one down station can domino into system-wide failures. The most recent national blackout was caused by issues at Nuevitas plant in the center of the island. And several others in the last couple of years have stemmed from failures at Cuba's largest plant, Antonio Guiteras. To help with this issue, Cuba built a network of smaller distributed power stations, which are now responsible for another 40% of the island's electricity. This is the part of the grid that relies on imported oil and Cuba's running out of it because of Trump's blockade, which effectively shut off all oil shipments. Even though the blockade hasn't caused the island wide blackouts, it has worsened their impact by limiting Cuba's use of its smaller power stations. Less power generation and a complete lack of diesel have had a crippling effect on daily life. Hours long power cuts are scheduled daily. Public and private transit have been sharply reduced. International airlines have suspended flights, cutting off tourism money, and many of the country's water aqueducts have stopped working, leaving many Cubans without running water.

It's a non-functional economy. It's an economy that has survived. That revolution, it's not even a revolution, that thing they have has survived on subsidies from the Soviet Union and now from Venezuela. They don't get subsidies anymore, so they're in a lot of trouble.

Cuba produces enough local crude to power their larger plants indefinitely, but it hasn't developed a meaningful renewable sector, and everything else runs on imported oil. Any new oil shipments will help, but not right away. Transporting the oil to refineries and then processing it into diesel, gasoline, and fuel oil could take a month, and then it has to be trucked all around the island. Meanwhile, Cuba's State run electric utility is reporting massive deficits every day. If regular shipments don't resume, the blackouts and shortages will only get worse.

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