LatinNews Daily - 26 May 2026

*Cuba’s Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) government has hailed a shipment of 15,000 tonnes (t) of rice from China, the first of an expected 60,000 t of rice from its ally.  The shipment was received by Cuba’s foreign trade and investment minister, Óscar Pérez Oliva Fraga, who is also deputy prime minister, and the domestic trade minister, Betsy Díaz Velázquez. Díaz Velázquez said that the 15,000 t would be distributed among all of the country’s provinces, and Isla de la Juventud, the second-largest Cuban island (after Cuba’s mainland), benefitting 9.6m consumers as well as health and education institutions. The shipment comes as Cuba is facing a multifaceted crisis as the US administration led by President Donald Trump has implemented an effective oil blockade, tightened sanctions, and floated possible military action, as part of efforts to push for political and economic change on the island and the release of political prisoners. In the latest sign of the impact of this pressure campaign, on 24 May Cuba’s national statistics institute (Onei) released new figures showing international tourists to the island totalled 328,608 in the first four months of 2026, down 55.8% on the same period in 2025. Meanwhile in a move likely to draw scrutiny from Washington, yesterday the Cuban government published the list of 2,010 prisoners that it announced it was releasing last month amid talks with US. However, Spain-based NGO Prisoners Defenders, which last month put the total of political prisoners at an “all-time high” of 1,260, was widely cited by media outlets as saying it had so far just identified one political prisoner on the list.

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