Cuba lost the source for around half its fuel needs when US forces snatched Venezuela’s president in a stunning January raid, with his successor complying with US pressure not to aid the island.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Cuba's leadership must change as Washington renewed an offer of $100 million (€85 million) in aid if the communist-run island agrees to cooperate.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65% of the country into darkness on Tuesday.
Cuba's leaders have blamed US sanctions but Rubio, a Cuban-American and vociferous critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame including corruption by the military.
"It's a broken, non-functional economy, and it's impossible to change it. I wish it were different," he told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Air Force One as he travelled with President Donald Trump to China.
"We'll give them a chance. But I don't think it's going to happen."
"I don't think we're going to be able to change the trajectory of Cuba as long as these people are in charge in that regime," Rubio added.
Trump, who since the start of the year has deposed Venezuela's leftist leader Nicolás Maduro but seen less success in a war on Iran, has mused that Cuba could be next and that the United States could take over the island 145 kilometres ff Florida.
Rubio said last week after talks at the Vatican that Cuba had rejected a US offer for $100 million in assistance, an assertion denied by Havana.
The State Department publicly renewed the proposal on Wednesday, a week after new US sanctions targeted key actors in Cuba's state-controlled economy and their foreign partners.
"The regime refuses to allow the United States to provide this assistance to the Cuban people, who are in desperate need of assistance due to the failures of Cuba's corrupt regime," the State Department said in a statement.
"The decision rests with the Cuban regime to accept our offer of assistance or deny critical (life)-saving aid and ultimately be accountable to the Cuban people for standing in the way of critical assistance," it said.
It said the support would include direct humanitarian assistance and funding for "fast and free" internet access, which presumably would benefit dissidents in the one-party state that restricts media.
New protests
Cuba has seen a series of rare protests as economic misery grips the island of 9.6 million people.
On Wednesday, several dozen people, some banging pots and pans, protested against power outages in the San Miguel del Padron neighbourhood on Havana's outskirts.
Several other areas saw similar protests by evening, with residents in Playa shouting, "Turn on the lights!", eyewitnesses said.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel acknowledged the "particularly tense" situation but pinned the blame squarely on the United States.
"This dramatic worsening has a single cause: the genocidal energy blockade to which the United States subjects our country, threatening irrational tariffs against any nation that supplies us with fuel," he wrote on X on Wednesday.
Cuba lost the source for around half its fuel needs when US forces snatched Venezuela’s Maduro in a stunning raid in January, with his successor complying with US pressure not to aid Cuba.
Since then, only one oil tanker, from Russia, has reached the island.