Right now, the roughly 10 million people living in Cuba are dealing with one of the worst humanitarian crises the island has seen in decades. We’re talking no electricity for days at a time, barely any food or clean water, hospitals that can’t function, and trash piling up in the streets because there’s not enough fuel to run garbage trucks. It’s bad. And the situation is escalating fast.

Cuba depends almost entirely on imported oil to keep the lights on, move food around the island, and power its water systems. Earlier this year, the Trump administration signed an executive order that essentially cut Cuba off from its oil supply. Any country that sells oil to Cuba now faces U.S. tariffs. Since January, almost no oil has reached the island. On March 16, the entire national power grid collapsed, leaving the whole country in the dark for over 29 hours. It was the third major blackout in four months.

The U.S. and Cuba have had a complicated relationship for over 60 years. The American trade embargo on Cuba has been in place since 1962. Over the decades it has tightened and loosened depending on who was in office (remember the Obama-era thaw?), but it never fully went away.

Cuba survived largely because countries like Venezuela and Mexico sold it oil at a discount. That changed dramatically in January 2026, when the U.S. captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and took control of Venezuela’s oil industry. According to TIME, that immediately cut off Cuba’s biggest fuel lifeline. Then came the executive order on January 29 threatening tariffs against any nation that ships oil to Cuba. Mexico stopped its shipments. Russia pulled back. The island was effectively blockaded.

The Trump administration has been explicit about its goal: regime change in Cuba by the end of the year. As NPR reported, officials have reportedly told Cuban leadership that President Miguel Díaz-Canel needs to step down.

To put the economic pain in perspective: according to The New Humanitarian, the average Cuban worker earns about 6,500 pesos a month, which comes out to less than $13 U.S. dollars. A carton of 30 eggs costs over 3,000 pesos. People are cooking over wood fires because they can’t power stoves. Food spoils within hours because there’s no electricity to run refrigerators.

CNN reported that hospitals are limiting surgeries and patient stays, clean water access is unreliable because pumping stations need electricity, and schools and universities have been disrupted. Human Rights Watch described the situation as pushing essential services to their absolute limit.

Public protest in Cuba is rare and risky. The government has a history of cracking down hard on demonstrators, going all the way back to the landmark July 2021 protests when hundreds were arrested and many received long prison sentences. But the current crisis has pushed people past their breaking point.

According to CNN, Havana residents took to the streets in early March banging pots and pans and lighting bonfires. University of Havana students staged a peaceful sit-in. By mid-March, as Al Jazeera reported, protesters had set fire to a Communist Party office and demonstrations were spreading to new neighborhoods nightly. WOLA estimates that between 754 and 1,214 people are currently detained in Cuba for political reasons.

On March 13, Cuban President Díaz-Canel publicly confirmed for the first time that his government has been in diplomatic talks with the U.S. Cuba has agreed to release 51 political prisoners as part of those discussions. Meanwhile, as Al Jazeera noted, Cuba’s Deputy Prime Minister announced that Cubans living abroad, including in Miami, will soon be allowed to invest directly in Cuba and even own businesses there. That’s a major shift for a communist government, and it lines up with what Trump has said publicly about wanting any deal to benefit the Cuban-American community in Florida.

But Trump has also made statements that go well beyond diplomacy. He told reporters he believes he’ll have the "honor" of "taking" Cuba, calling it a "very weakened nation." As CNBC reported, Díaz-Canel responded by pledging “unyielding resistance” to what he called almost daily threats from the U.S.

According to WOLA, more than a million Cubans have left the island since 2021, and in 2025, Cubans were the third-largest group seeking asylum worldwide. Cuba has lost roughly 10% of its population in recent years. If the crisis deepens, experts warn of a mass migration wave toward Florida and broader instability across the Caribbean. Nicaragua, which had been a popular transit route for Cuban migrants, recently closed that pathway as well, cutting off another escape valve.

Cuba is a nation with deep cultural and historical ties to Black communities across the Americas. The island has one of the largest Afro-descendant populations in the Caribbean, and the connections between Black American and Black Cuban culture run deep through music, art, religion, and shared histories of resistance. What’s happening in Cuba right now isn’t just geopolitics. It’s a humanitarian emergency affecting real people: families who are skipping meals, elders who can’t access medicine, young people who see no future on the island they love.

The UN has condemned the blockade as a serious violation of international law. Human rights organizations have criticized both the Cuban government’s crackdown on its own citizens and the U.S. pressure campaign that is making daily life unbearable for millions. Activists in the U.S. and around the world are mobilizing humanitarian aid convoys and pushing for policy changes.

Whatever your politics, the people in the middle of this deserve attention. This story is moving fast, and it’s far from over.