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Cuban Power Grid Collapse Leaves 10 Million in Darkness

3/17/2026

31 3 Full Breakdown

Summary

Story summary

The Cuban grid collapsed on March 16, leaving about 10 million people without power.
The outage followed prior outages and protests, worsened by a U.S.-imposed oil blockade.
U.S. President Donald Trump cut off Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba.
Cuba has received only two small oil shipments this year and had no significant imports since January.
Ongoing talks with the United States address the crisis, and Trump seeks to “take” Cuba.

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Story summary

The Cuban grid collapsed on March 16, leaving about 10 million people without power.
The outage followed prior outages and protests, worsened by a U.S.-imposed oil blockade.
U.S. President Donald Trump cut off Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba.
Cuba has received only two small oil shipments this year and had no significant imports since January.
Ongoing talks with the United States address the crisis, and Trump seeks to “take” Cuba.