Weekly Report - 26 March 2026 (WR-26-12)

In the latest sign of the impact of Washington’s unprecedented pressure on Cuba via its crippling oil blockade, the island, which has not received fuel imports in three months, faced another national blackout on 21 March, less than a week after a previous nationwide outage [WR-26-11]. Yet this has appeared to do little to dampen Havana’s resolve regarding changes to its political system, despite its recent agreement to a prisoner release, economic concessions (rejected as not dramatic enough by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio), and acknowledgement of talks with the US administration led by President Donald Trump.