15/06/2026
Cuba in Figures: The Genocide of the Blockade in Numbers and Facts
The U.S. blockade has caused multibillion-dollar losses to the Cuban economy over the past 67 years and has become the main obstacle to the country's economic and social development.
Its human impact is incalculable: lives lost, personal and family suffering, severe deprivation, psychological harm, and damage to public health. Eighty percent of Cubans living on the island have spent their entire lives under the genocidal effects of the blockade.
The two Executive Orders signed by President Donald Trump on January 29 and May 1, 2026, have further intensified the deliberate economic strangulation of Cuba and its people, deepening to unprecedented levels the economic siege and the human suffering caused by these unilateral and extraterritorial measures of collective punishment.
Figures Illustrating the Genocide Against the Cuban People
• 1,400 MW of distributed electricity generation capacity across the country cannot be utilized because Cuba is unable to purchase the diesel fuel and fuel oil required to operate these generating units, engines, and floating power plants, due to the total blockade on Cuba's access to oil and petroleum products.
• Cubans endure more than 20 hours of power outages per day on average, affecting lighting, food preparation, access to drinking water, television and communications services, and other essential public services.
• 1,800 children were deprived of their right to life as a result of the doubling of the country's infant mortality rate following the tightening of the blockade, according to a recent study by CEPR. At the beginning of President Trump's first term in 2017, Cuba had an exceptional infant mortality rate for a Global South country of 4.0 deaths per 1,000 live births. Over the following years, that figure rose to 9.9 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2025.
• The survival rate of children with cancer in Cuba has fallen by 65%, from an 85% survival rate recorded before the tightening of the energy blockade.
• More than 100,000 Cubans are currently on waiting lists for elective or reconstructive surgeries as a direct result of the shortages of energy and medical supplies caused by the blockade. According to the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP), this includes 5,152 cancer patients and approximately 12,000 children.
• 2,888 Cubans undergoing hemodialysis treatment for chronic kidney failure have seen their regular treatment affected, as this life-sustaining therapy is highly dependent on medical supplies, water, and specialized equipment.
• The National Immunization Program, one of the greatest achievements of Cuba’s public health system, which includes 16 vaccines and protects millions of Cuban children, is now at serious risk. Restrictions arising from the blockade are making it increasingly difficult to obtain the raw materials, equipment, and financial resources needed to sustain the domestic production of vaccines.
• 300 essential medicines, out of the 395 medicines produced domestically and included in Cuba’s Basic Health System formulary, are currently unavailable because of the inability to obtain pharmaceutical raw materials and other essential inputs.
• The blockade has severely hindered the domestic production of several diagnostic tests developed by Cuba’s biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, including essential tests for the early detection of cancer.
• More than 100,000 Cuban children are no longer receiving their daily litre of milk, subsidized by the State, due to fuel shortages that prevent the transportation of milk from production facilities to the country’s major cities.
• Logistical and payment obstacles affecting the purchase of wheat have resulted in only 50% of the flour required by the provinces being delivered, forcing the rationed bread distributed to the population to be reduced in weight from 80 grams to 60 grams.
• 170 containers of essential goods that have arrived in Cuba, with an estimated value of US$6.3 million, have been unable to reach their intended recipients due to the shortage of fuel.
• 11,000 tonnes of basic food supplies already stored by the World Food Programme (WFP) in warehouses across Cuba are being distributed "at a much slower pace than they should be" because of fuel shortages and transportation constraints.
• UNICEF and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have reported that they have dozens of containers at Cuban ports that are being cleared and distributed only with great difficulty and considerable delays due to the current logistical situation.
The Economic Strangulation
The Executive Order of May 1 expanded Washington’s punitive measures against the Cuban economy to unprecedented levels, targeting not only Cuba but also any company anywhere in the world that seeks to trade with or invest in the country.
As a result of these far-reaching sanctions:
• The Canadian company Sherritt International suspended its mining and energy operations in Cuba.
• The two main international shipping companies serving Cuba—France’s CMA CGM and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd—decided to stop accepting new cargo bookings to and from Cuba. As a consequence, a shipment of parts and components intended for the repair of the Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Power Plant, the country’s largest thermal generating unit, remains stranded in France.
• Approximately 20 containers of Cuban rum intended for export are likewise stranded at Cuban port terminals.
• Several international airlines, including Turkish Airlines, Iberia, Air Canada, Air France, World2Fly, and others, have cancelled their flights to Cuba due to the shortage of aviation fuel in the country and the resulting decline in visitor arrivals.
• The Canadian company Blue Diamond withdrew from Cuba and ceased managing more than 60 hotel facilities across the country.
• The Spanish hotel chains Meliá and Iberostar stopped managing 15 and 12 hotels, respectively, among the tourism facilities they had been operating throughout the Cuban archipelago.
• The foreign bank responsible for processing VISA and MasterCard transactions in Cuba terminated its relationship with FINCIMEX as of 6 June.
• Trafigura Group informed smelters in China that they would no longer receive shipments of zinc concentrate from the Castellanos Project in Pinar del Río, Cuba, as a result of pressure from the United States.
• Empresa Minera La Victoria S.A., a joint venture between Australia’s Antillas Gold Ltd. and the Cuban company SOF Geominera S.A., was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury for allegedly “generating revenue for the Cuban State.” Earlier, Moa Nickel S.A., another mining joint venture between Sherritt and the Cuban Nickel Business Group, had also been singled out.
• CUPET, Cuba’s state-owned oil and petroleum company, was added to the list of entities subject to unilateral U.S. sanctions with broad extraterritorial effects, representing yet another step toward tightening the energy blockade imposed on Cuba to its extreme limits.
Cutting Off Solidarity
The Executive Order of May 1 went so far as to criminalize donations that individuals and organizations may wish to make to Cuba, despite the severe humanitarian crisis generated by the intensified blockade imposed on the country.
As a result:
• There have been attempts to criminalize and publicly discredit U.S.-based organizations and individuals that express solidarity with Cuba, including The People’s Forum, CodePink, ANSWER, Tricontinental, the media platform BreakThrough News, and the political commentator and influencer Hasan Piker.
• The U.S. Department of the Treasury imposed retaliatory measures against the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP)—the principal organization responsible for coordinating solidarity initiatives and donations to Cuba—and against its travel agency AMISTUR, thereby threatening sanctions against any individual or entity that maintains relations with these Cuban organizations.
• The payment platform Stripe closed the account of Cuban Americans for Cuba Inc., an organization that advocates for an end to the U.S. blockade. According to the notification received by the organization, Stripe decided to terminate the account because of its alleged “exposure to prohibited jurisdictions,” including Cuba, citing restrictions imposed by regulators and business partners.
Beyond the statistics and coercive measures, the blockade constitutes a form of collective punishment that is extreme and unjustifiable against the Cuban people. It is genocidal, illegal, extraterritorial, and contrary to international law.
