By Vera Bergengruen and Deborah Acosta

Daily life in Cuba is grinding to a halt under a U.S. campaign to block the island's oil imports, drawing international criticism that the Trump administration is pushing the island toward a humanitarian crisis with no clear endgame.

The Caribbean island's Communist authorities are rationing dwindling fuel supplies, curtailing public transportation, and furloughing workers. Children are being sent home from school early, people can barely afford basic food like milk and chicken, and long lines have sprung up at gas stations.

Cuba's crucial tourism industry is paralyzed. Some popular hotels, crippled by ongoing blackouts, have begun to shut down, ferrying remaining guests to other lodging, according to Russia's tour-operator agency.

With more than 4,000 Russian tourists in Cuba, Moscow-backed state airline Aeroflot said it was restricting service and flying an empty plane to pick up tourists.

Air Canada, which said it had 3,000 customers in Cuba, said it was suspending service to the country because of the fuel shortage. Other airlines said they would refuel in neighboring islands for now.

The swiftly deteriorating conditions in Cuba come after the Trump administration effectively set up an oil blockade last month. The last oil delivery to the country was a Jan. 9 shipment from Mexico, which has since halted supplies under U.S. pressure. Cuba has also lost crude deliveries from Venezuela since the Jan. 3 U.S. raid that captured authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro, ending all support for Cuba from its biggest backer.

President Trump's executive order on Jan. 29 called Cuba "an unusual and extraordinary threat" and warned of new tariffs for any country that supplies oil to the island. The new measures go on top of a comprehensive set of U.S. sanctions on Cuba that began in the early 1960s when the Fidel Castro-led government nationalized U.S. property.

Cuba's government has accused the Trump administration of "blackmail and coercion." The blocking of oil imports has drawn condemnation from the U.K. and Democratic lawmakers in Washington, and the United Nations has warned of a humanitarian crisis.

"It is very unjust," Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has been under pressure at home to help Cuba, said on Monday. "You cannot strangle a people like this. They don't have fuel for hospitals, for schools."

Trump officials have denied that U.S. pressure to curb fuel shipments to Cuba is responsible for the crisis. "This idea that a short-term change in some amount of oil shipments is what's responsible for the humanitarian situation in Cuba is simply not true," Jeremy Lewin, a State Department official for foreign assistance and humanitarian affairs, told reporters last week.

The State Department recently said the U.S. would send $6 million in humanitarian aid, which includes canned tuna, rice, beans, pasta, and solar lamps to allow recipients to charge their phones.

For Cubans, the breakdown has been punishing. Most Cubans are living with increasingly severe blackouts. On a recent Saturday morning, one of the main arteries in one of the busiest neighborhoods in Havana was empty save for one vehicle.

Lizzel Jimenez, 64 years old, can no longer travel to work. Even if she wanted to, her job at the Department of Agriculture -- which pays 4,000 pesos a month, or less than $10 -- has been frozen until further notice.

She's grateful that she had already secured a second job sterilizing medical equipment for 3,000 pesos a month at a nearby clinic. What was once extra income, will now be her only lifeline.

"Everything is paralyzed," said Jimenez. "Almost all the jobs are paralyzed."

She and other furloughed Cubans will receive their salary for one more month. In the following two months, they will get only 60% of their salary.

"It's a pittance," said Jimenez, who is raising a four-year-old granddaughter.

A liter of milk costs 1,600 pesos, she said, and one small package of chicken drumsticks is 2,000. With just those two items, her new monthly budget is overextended.

The speed with which conditions on the island have deteriorated has surprised analysts and some U.S. officials. There are concerns that without a clear plan for stabilization, the crisis could drag on for years, exacting a heavy toll on ordinary Cubans. Jorge Piñón, an expert on Cuban energy at the University of Texas who tracks oil shipments to the island, believes a collapse is imminent because oil will completely run out by April the latest.

"In Cuba, the biggest blackout you have ever seen will happen sooner than you all think," he said. "And now what? That's the question that I have."

Trump has said the U.S. is "talking to Cuba" and argued that the island's pain is avoidable. "It doesn't have to be a humanitarian crisis, " he said last week. "I think they probably would come to us and want to make a deal."

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has been searching for Cuban government insiders who can help cut a deal to push out the Communist regime by the end of the year, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Florida Republicans and other hard-liners have cheered the Trump administration's crackdown. "Our Cuban-American community is eternally grateful for your decisive action against the regime," Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), posted on X. "The end is near!"

Cuba's President Miguel Díaz-Canel said his government is willing to engage with the Trump administration as long as any dialogue comes without prior conditions and respects Cuba's sovereignty.

"To surrender isn't an option for Cuba," he said last week. "Tough times are coming. We will overcome this together with creative resistance."

Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, said the body is "extremely concerned about the humanitarian situation in Cuba," warning that shortages could push essential services to break down if the country's oil needs go unmet.

Critics in Congress have accused the Trump administration of "economic warfare."

"The most vulnerable will suffer the most. This policy is unconscionable, " Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) said.

Write to Vera Bergengruen at vera.bergengruen@wsj.com and Deborah Acosta at deborah.acosta@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 10, 2026 14:31 ET (19:31 GMT)

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