Islandwide blackout hits Cuba as island struggles with deepening energy crisis

HAVANA (AP) — Officials in Cuba reported an islandwide blackout Monday in the country of some 11 million people as its energy and economic crises deepen and its power grid continues to crumble.

The Ministry of Energy and Mines on X noted a “complete disconnection” of the country’s electrical system and said it was investigating, noting there were no failures in the units that were operating when the grid collapsed.

It was the third major blackout in Cuba over the past four months.

Tomás David Velázquez Felipe, a 61-year-old resident of Havana, said the relentless outages make him think that Cubans who can should just pack up and leave the island. “What little we have to eat spoils,” he said. “Our people are too old to keep suffering.”

Cuba’s aging grid has drastically eroded in recent years, leading to an increase in daily outages and islandwide blackouts. But the government also has blamed its woes on a U.S. energy blockade after President Donald Trump in January warned of tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba. The Trump administration is demanding that Cuba release political prisoners and move toward political and economic liberalization in return for a lifting of sanctions. Trump also has raised the possibility of a "friendly takeover of Cuba."

On Monday, he said he believes he’ll have the “honor of taking Cuba.”

“I mean, whether I free it, take it. I think I could do anything I want with it,” Trump said about Cuba, calling it a “very weakened nation.”

The U.S. Embassy in Cuba wrote on X on Monday that “there is no information on when power would be restored.”

“Cuba’s national electrical grid is increasingly unstable and prolonged scheduled and unscheduled power outages are a daily occurrence across the country,” it wrote. “Take precautions by conserving fuel, water, food, and mobile phone charge, and be prepared for significant disruption.”

William LeoGrande, a professor at American University who has tracked Cuba for years, said the country's energy grid hasn't been maintained properly and its infrastructure is “way past its normal useful life.”

“The technicians working on the grid are magicians to keep it running at all given the shape that it’s in," LeoGrande said.

LeoGrande said that if the island drastically reduces consumption and expands renewables, it can struggle along for a while without oil shipments. “But it would be constant misery for the general population, and eventually, the economy could collapse just completely and then you would have social chaos and probably mass migration,” he said.

To ramp up solar power even faster than Cuba did last year, LeoGrande said other countries, principally China, would have to be willing to double or more their provision of such equipment.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Friday said the island had not received oil shipments in three months and was operating on solar power, natural gas and thermoelectric plants, and that the government has had to postpone surgeries for tens of thousands of people.

Yaimisel Sánchez Peña, 48, said she was upset that the food she buys with money that her son in the U.S. sends keeps spoiling, adding that the outages also affect her 72-year-old mother: “Every day, she suffers."

Mercedes Velázquez, a 71-year-old Cuban resident, lamented yet another blackout. “We’re here waiting to see what happens,” she said, adding that she recently gave away part of a soup she made while it was still fresh so as not to throw it out. “Everything goes bad.”

A massive outage over a week ago affected the island’s west, leaving millions without power. Another major blackout affected western Cuba in early December.

Critical oil shipments from Venezuela were halted after the U.S. attacked the South American country in early January and arrested its then-president, Nicolás Maduro.

While Cuba produces 40% of its petroleum and has been generating its own power, it hasn’t been sufficient to meet demand as its electric grid continues to crumble.

“And on top of all that, the Cuban government doesn’t have the hard currency to import spare parts or upgrade the plant or grid itself. It’s just a perfect storm of collapse," LeoGrande said.

He noted that the thermoelectric plants also have been using heavy oil, whose sulfur content is corroding the equipment.

On Friday, Díaz-Canel confirmed that Cuba was holding talks with the U.S. government as the problems continue to deepen.

Coto reported from San José, Costa Rica. Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in Washington contributed.

People walk outside during a blackout in Havana, Cuba, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A man walks outside during a blackout in Havana, Cuba, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

People ride a bicycle during a blackout in Havana, Cuba, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A man rides a tricycle with his leashed dog running alongside him during a blackout in Havana, Cuba, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A man finishes putting fuel in his car's tank, located in the back of the car, during a blackout in Havana, Cuba, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

People walk outside during a blackout in Havana, Cuba, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A man speaks with a person in a car during a blackout in Havana, Cuba, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

People ride their bicycles along the Malecón during a blackout in Havana, Cuba, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

People line up in the street to buy bread in Havana, Cuba, Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

MADRID (AP) — Spain’s monarch said Monday the Spanish conquest of the Americas included “much abuse” and “ethical controversies,” striking a conciliatory tone amid a yearslong row between Spain and Mexico over colonial era abuses committed by the Spanish crown centuries ago.

King Felipe VI made the remarks while speaking with Mexico’s ambassador to Spain, Quirino Ordaz, during a visit to a museum exhibition in Madrid about the role of women in pre-Columbian Mexico.

About the centuries-old Spanish conquest, Felipe said: “There are things that, when we study them, we come to know them, and well, with our current values, they obviously cannot make us feel proud.”

“But they must be understood in their proper context, not with excessive moral presentism, but with an objective and rigorous analysis,” he said.

The Bourbon king’s symbolic remarks came after years of a diplomatic spat between Spain and Mexico over the Mexican government’s demands that Spain apologize for its 1519-1521 conquest of Mexico, which resulted in the death of a large part of the country’s pre-Hispanic population.

Colonial Spain ruled one of the largest empires in history with its territorial holdings spanning 5 continents at its peak between the 16th and 18th centuries. That included much of Central and South America.

Mexico City was the seat of Spain’s colonial power in the Americas after the Spanish and their Indigenous allies toppled the Aztecs in 1521. Mexico City was built over the ruins of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan.

In 2019, former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador demanded that Spain “publicly and officially” recognize the abuses committed during the conquest of Mexico in a letter sent to the Spanish king and Pope Francis. Spain refused to do so, which soured relations between the two governments.

In 2024, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum did not invite Felipe to her inauguration over the palace’s refusal to issue a formal apology, a move that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called “unacceptable.” Spain refused to send a representative to Sheinbaum’s inauguration.

But tensions appeared to thaw last fall when Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares acknowledged the “pain and injustice” suffered by Mexico’s Indigenous population at the hands of Spanish conquerors. Those comments came at the inauguration of the same museum exhibit attended Monday by the king.

“There has been pain, pain and injustice toward the indigenous peoples to whom this exhibition is dedicated,” Albares said at the time.

Sheinbaum recognized the foreign minister’s remarks as a first step, saying then that “this is the first time that a Spanish government authority has spoken of regretting the injustice.”

Felipe’s comments do not constitute a formal apology by Spain’s royal palace. Sheinbaum on Monday said she would look into his remarks.

FILE - Spanish King Felipe attends commemorations marking the 10th anniversary of the proclamation of Spain's King Felipe VI at Royal Palace in Madrid, June 19, 2024. (Juan Medina/Pool Photo via AP, File)