Cuba has successfully restored electricity nationwide following an extensive 29-hour blackout that plunged its entire population of 10 million into darkness, according to energy officials. The grid was fully reconnected by 6:11 pm Tuesday, though authorities cautioned that power shortages may persist due to insufficient generation capacity.
The restoration came after technicians managed to reactivate the Antonio Guiteras power plant, a decades-old facility that serves as the cornerstone of Cuba’s energy infrastructure. This development offers limited relief to citizens already weary from months of intermittent outages caused by severe fuel shortages and aging power generation systems.
The blackout occurred against the backdrop of intensifying US pressure on the Caribbean nation. The Trump administration has implemented measures to restrict Cuba’s access to oil supplies, including cutting off Venezuelan shipments and threatening tariffs on countries that attempt to fill the gap. President Donald Trump explicitly stated on Monday that he could “take” Cuba and would be “doing something with Cuba very soon.”
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel responded defiantly to Washington’s threats, criticizing what he described as “almost daily public threats against Cuba” and asserting that any external aggressor would encounter “unbreakable resistance.” In a social media post following power restoration, he accused the US of attempting to “announce plans to take over the country, its resources, its properties, and even the very economy they seek to suffocate in order to force us to surrender.”
The political confrontation escalated as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed Cuba’s recent decision to allow exiles to invest and own businesses as insufficient for meaningful free-market reforms. Meanwhile, a US State Department official attributed the grid collapse to the Cuban government’s mismanagement.
Diplomatic channels remain open but contentious. Tanieris Dieguez, Cuba’s deputy chief of mission in Washington, told AFP that while Cuba is prepared for broad discussions with the US and welcomes increased investment, the nation’s political system and constitutional model are non-negotiable. “The only thing that Cuba asks for in any conversation is respect to our sovereignty and to our right to self-determination,” she emphasized.
International concern over the situation grew as Russia’s Foreign Ministry condemned US actions as “gross interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state” and pledged necessary support for Cuba. The ministry statement accused the US of deliberately ratcheting up “the atmosphere of confrontation.”