LatinNews Daily - 07 July 2026

*Cuba’s state power company, Unión Eléctrica (UNE), has announced a nationwide blackout in Cuba, the third complete outage this year and the eighth since October 2024, on international media reports. UNE did not provide reasons for the latest outage which comes as the US administration led by President Donald Trump is applying a maximum pressure campaign in the form of an oil blockade, sanctions, and the threat of military action, among other things, as part of efforts to force Cuba’s economic and political opening. With the island having received just one shipment of fuel this year, from a Russian tanker in March after Trump briefly lifted the blockade, the Cuban government was compelled to admit in May that the country had run out of fuel oil and diesel. Since announcing the latest outage, the UNE has said that efforts are underway to restore power. In its latest bulletin for yesterday (6 July), UNE said that yesterday’s electricity supply stood at 935 megawatts (MW) at peak time while maximum demand was 3,100MW, creating a deficit of 2,165 MW. In May United Nations experts warned of the humanitarian impact of Washington’s fuel blockade, saying that it amounts to “energy starvation”.