Fuel-starved Cubans scramble to make ends meet

People play dominoes in a street during a blackout in Havana, Cuba, on February 21, 2026. Picture: Yamil Lage / AFP The US-imposed oil blockade on Cuba is upending the lives of everyday workers, who are switching jobs and ditching their cars to make do amid rolling blackouts and fuel shortages. Yixander Diaz jettisoned both his ride and his work when the father of two, a taxi driver, turned to bricklaying.

“Times are tough,” the 27-year-old, who now commutes by bicycle from his Havana suburb to the city center, told AFP. Since toppling Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolas Maduro in January, the United States has stopped the new authorities in Caracas from shipping oil to Cuba and threatened to sanction any other country that does. The result is a crushing energy crisis in a country that has for years battled extended power cuts and shortages of fuel, medicine and food.

Vehicle owners have access to 20 liters of gasoline through a mobile application that organises distribution — but it can take months. Due to the fuel shortage, Diaz had to “park the motorcycle, park the car” and return to his former profession “to survive.” Communist-run Cuba, which has faced a US trade embargo since 1962, has said it would maintain public sector salaries for the time being, but has instituted a four-day work week as transportation woes bite. Diesel sales are banned and gasoline sales are restricted under the emergency measures instituted by the government to deal with the crisis. Many self-employed, private sector and informal workers are barely hanging on.