U.S. sanctions against Cuba caused a record loss of $8.083 billion during a single 12-month period, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez told the United Nations.
Rodríguez said the losses occurred between March 1, 2025, and February 28, 2026, and marked a 7% increase over the previous record-high damages posted just one year ago.
Cuban officials say the figure is conservative and does not fully capture the financial devastation triggered by fuel shortages in early 2026. Critics say Cuba’s claims don’t take into account the socialist government’s failures, mismanagement and inefficiency.
You can download and read the Cuban government’s 50-page report detailing the losses.
Or, see below for an AI summary, along with a fact check:
📊 Economic Damages & Financial Impact
- Record Annual Losses: the blockade inflicted a record $8,083,300,000 USD in damages, marking a 7% increase from the previous period.
- Cumulative Impact: Over more than 60 years, the total accumulated damages reached $178,700,500,000 USD at current prices (or over $3.89 trillion when adjusted against the price of gold).
- GDP Suppression: Without the blockade, Cuba’s 2025 GDP would have been 10.8% higher.
- Banking Persecution: Due to Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, 34 international banking institutions suspended or declined operations with Cuba, severely curtailing international payments and freezing assets.
⚡ The Energy Blockade
A primary focus of the report is the formal imposition of a sweeping U.S. Energy Blockade via Executive Order 14380 on January 29, 2026.
- Fuel Shortages: By the close of May 2026, the country was short by 2,667,800 tons of fuel compared to what was planned.
- Severe Blackouts: Residential areas faced an average of more than 20 hours of daily blackouts, with some communities going 30 straight hours without electricity.
- Grid Failure: Approximately 1,400 MW of available power capacity sat idle due to lack of fuel, and 11 out of 15 thermal units outside Havana were pushed out of their maintenance cycles.
🏥 Healthcare & Humanitarian Crisis
The combination of the energy blockade and financial restrictions heavily compromised the public health sector:
- Surgeries Delayed: Cuba’s surgical waiting list climbed to 100,000 patients, including 12,000 children.
- Cancer Survival Plummets: Daily cancer deaths have surged past 70, and the cancer survival rate among children and youth plummeted from 85% to 65%.
- Medication & Supply Deficits: Out of 395 basic framework pharmaceuticals, 300 are currently unavailable. Cuba remains unable to source vital U.S.-component medical equipment like pediatric cardiac pumps or specialized oncology medications (e.g., Pemetrexed, Palbociclib).
- Vaccination Delays: Disrupted refrigerated transport delayed routine vaccines for over 30,000 children.
🌾 Agriculture, Education, and Infrastructure
- Food Production: Irrigation in the cold season averaged just 2 hours a day (instead of the required 16), breaking agricultural cycles. Distribution of 20,000 tons of humanitarian food aid slowed to a crawl due to a lack of fuel.
- Education: Transportation limits impacted 30% of student/teacher enrollment, forcing higher education to shift entirely to a remote modality in early 2026. Special education schools faced severe shortages of hearing aids, cochlear implants, and braille machines.
- Public Transit: Havana’s passenger transport system operates on barely more than 100 buses, despite needing a minimum of 3,000.
- Tourism Collapse: Following restrictions on supplying aviation fuel, international airlines (such as Plus Ultra) and prominent hotel chains suspended operations, dismantling recovery prospects.
⚖️ Expansion of Sanctions & Hostile Rhetoric
- Secondary Sanctions: Executive Order 14404 (May 1, 2026) expanded secondary sanctions, punishing foreign entities, shipping conglomerates (like Hapag-Lloyd), and banks doing business in Cuban strategic sectors (mining, energy, finance).
- Helms-Burton Act: By March 2026, 46 lawsuits had been filed under Title III targeting foreign and domestic operations utilizing nationalized properties.
- Regime Change Narrative: The report condemns an escalation in aggressive military rhetoric from senior U.S. officials in early 2026, including threats of naval intervention, reconnaissance flights, and open calls for regime change.
The report features anecdotes that illustrate the toll of U.S. sanctions. Among them:
🏥 1. The Anesthesiologist: Operating Under Cell Phone Flashlights
- Doctor Yudmila Rodríguez Verdecia, chief anesthesiologist and head of the obstetric operating theater at a major Cuban maternity hospital.
- The report details how the energy blockade subjects hospitals to a state of constant “asphyxiation”. Doctor Rodríguez Verdecia recounts the terrifying reality of navigating sudden power failures mid-procedure: “When an electrical emergency occurs, a blackout, the entire unit shuts down. We are plunged into complete darkness.” Because equipment lacks stable backup power, her medical team has been forced to carry out vital surgeries under the dim glow of cell phone flashlights to save lives.
👦 2. The Pediatric Cancer Patient: Facing Interrupted Radiation
- Fifteen-year-old Diego, who has spent nearly four years battling cancer, and his mother, Licet Rodríguez Alonso.
- Diego’s survival relies entirely on highly specialized, energy-hungry radiotherapy and chemotherapy machines. His mother describes the immense psychological and emotional trauma of managing her son’s treatment in an environment with no stable fuel or electricity: “Diego is in radiation, but there’s no fuel. How will those machines run? If the hospital shuts down, how can I keep Diego’s treatment going?”
✈️ 3. The Canadian Family: Blocked from Vacationing by U.S. Law
- An unnamed Canadian family seeking to travel to Cuba, as documented by the media outlet The Pointer on January 21, 2026.
- To illustrate how the extraterritorial nature of the Helms-Burton Act impacts individuals thousands of miles away from the U.S., the report shares the story of a Canadian family trying to redeem vacation points accumulated on their Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) credit card. When trying to book flights and lodging on the Island through the Expedia platform, their searches for “Havana” were completely blocked. Expedia Group restricted the bookings—even for non-U.S. citizens—due to the sweeping legal and financial risks imposed by U.S. secondary sanctions.
✅ Verified Factual Claims
A detailed fact-check of the Cuban government’s document confirms that the core financial statistics and political events are highly accurate, aligning directly with real-world declarations and media updates from September 2026.
- The $8.083 Billion Loss: Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez officially presented these exact figures on September 7, 2026. International agencies like Reuters and AFP confirmed that Cuba reported a record $8,083,300,000 in damages between March 2025 and February 2026.
- Executive Orders 14380 and 14404: U.S. President Donald Trump did sign EO 14380 on January 29, 2026, which declared a national emergency regarding Cuba and authorized tariffs against countries supplying oil to the island. This was followed by EO 14404 on May 1, 2026, expanding stringent secondary sanctions against foreign entities and financial networks.
- Marco Rubio’s Senate Testimony: In late January 2026, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio explicitly testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stating, “I think we would like to see the regime there change,” matching page 40 of your document.
- Trump’s Rhetoric: President Trump has repeatedly claimed that Cuba is “devastated” and suggested “taking Cuba” or that it is “next in line” for regime change. Most recently, on September 7, 2026, he posted a highly publicized map on Truth Social showing the U.S. flag blanketing Cuba.
- Specific Healthcare Deficits: The specific U.S.-manufactured or patent-restricted oncology drugs listed on page 33—such as Pemetrexed, Palbociclib, and Brentuximab vedotin—are widely documented by international health observers as being blocked or complicated by embargo restrictions.
⚠️ Contextual Caveats & Disputed Interpretations
While the baseline events happened, the cause of Cuba’s collapse is a point of intense global disagreement:
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- The Cause of the Hardships (Embargo vs. Mismanagement): The report attributes 100% of the food, fuel, medicine, and power shortages to the U.S. blockade. While secondary sanctions undeniably cripple global trade pipelines, the U.S. State Department and independent economists counter that decades of centralized economic mismanagement, agricultural inefficiencies, and currency inflation are equally responsible for the current systemic failures.
- Exclusion of Global Price Volatility: The text references sharp spikes in gold and current prices. It downplays that global inflation and macro-crises (like the sudden disruption of the Venezuelan oil alliance in early 2026) heavily compounded Cuba’s isolation independent of direct U.S. laws.
- The “Genocide” Designation: The document utilizes heavily loaded semantic framing, calling the blockades an “act of genocide” under International Law. While various UN rapporteurs have expressed human rights concerns over the secondary impacts on children and healthcare, “genocide” is a highly strict legal term under the UN Genocide Convention that does not officially apply to trade embargoes.
🔍 Summary Verdict
Cuba’s crisis is a classic example of a “perfect storm” where multiple, deeply interconnected factors multiply each other’s worst effects.
When analysts look at Cuba without a political lens, they generally see three main layers working together to cause the current collapse:
1. The Foundation: 60 Years of Cumulative Attrition
The 60-year U.S. embargo acts as a permanent, heavy brake on the Cuban economy. It systematically blocks access to foreign investment, international credit, and standard global trade networks. This means Cuba has spent decades operating on the razor’s edge with zero financial reserves or safety nets.
- Sixty Years of Attrition: The embargo is not a recent hurdle but the longest-running comprehensive sanctions regime in modern history. Decades of restriction have systematically denied Cuba normal access to global trade, credit markets, and technological development.
- The “Cumulative” Drain: The article notes that total accumulated damages over six decades have reached $178.7 billion at current prices (or over $3.89 trillion when adjusted against the price of gold). This continuous economic drain meant that when the 2026 “maximum pressure” campaign began, Cuba had already been stripped of the financial reserves and infrastructure resilience that a normal economy would use to weather a crisis.
- Generational Infrastructure Decay: The lack of access to standard international financing and U.S.-patent-protected spare parts over 60 years directly contributed to the current physical collapse of water systems, transport, and the power grid.
2. The Multiplier: Internal Structural Failures
Operating inside that highly restrictive environment, the Cuban government’s choices have compounded the damage.
- Bureaucratic Chokepoints: Rigid, Soviet-style centralized control, strict price regulations, and a reluctance to allow a vibrant private market have stifled domestic food production and industry.
- Infrastructure Neglect: Over the last decade, state planners chose to invest heavily in building luxury tourist hotels rather than upgrading the island’s aging, 40-year-old power grid, leaving the country highly vulnerable to blackouts.
3. The Catalyst: Sudden External Shocks
An already fragile system running on zero margins was then hit by sudden, massive disruptions in early 2026:
- The Venezuelan Shift: Cuba lost its primary source of subsidized oil when Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro was removed from power.
- The 2026 “Maximum Pressure” Campaign: The U.S. immediately capitalized on this vulnerability by issuing Executive Order 14380 (blocking alternative oil supplies) and Executive Order 14404 (punishing international banks and shipping lines that trade with Cuba).
Bottom line
If Cuba had a highly efficient, open economy, it might have navigated the sanctions better. Conversely, even a perfectly managed economy would struggle to survive the longest, most comprehensive embargo in modern history.