Mainstream news describe the economic situation is Cuba as extreme, see for example, this article by CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/22/americas/cuba-crisis-energy-economy-intl-latam
Is that true? How to get a realistic account of the current situation in Cuba? Is United States blockade getting worse?
Edit. Added a mainstream source and re-stated my question in a more neutral tone.
Long story short, the embargo made COVID especially difficult for getting critical vaccines in Cuba, and especially hurt their tourism industry. On top of this, their electrical grid is seriously harmed. The good news is that they are getting tons of solar panels from the PRC, and Vietnam is also providing support.
The people still support their government, but are obviously very upset right now. They overwhelmingly blame the US Empire and their blockade, which is just an open tool of economic warfare.
The people still support their government, but are obviously very upset right now. They overwhelmingly blame the US Empire and their blockade, which is just an open tool of economic warfare.
That’s a great point that I forgot to include in my post!
Including some links in case anyone is interested in how elections in Cuba work.
Good Video on the History of Cuban Elections and how they work.
As a general rule, never trust Liberal news for anything.
Never trust news from a single source/political sphere, no.
That sounds good in theory, but keep in mind that 99% of English-language news sources are liberal ones.
Et alors, j’etudais Francaise! Attend…
There is a lot of left-leaning content available in French! They have a lot of scholars and thinkers who are openly leftists, and in Europe it will not scare anyone.
But my single source got his producer illegally arrested by the NSW gestapo and his house firebombed by criminal gangs. I’d say pissing off the powerful to that extent earns some trust.
Is your single source of news Boy Boy??
Jordan Shanks, but I also follow Boy Boy as of recently.
I believe a similar thing happened to Boy Boy after their laundering money in casinos thing actually.
I just considered them “firebombed by association”. Jordan’s collaboration with them can be interpreted as an endorsement, and I trust Jordan because he got firebombed.
Oh okay so it’s the same incident. I’ve been having the confusions for like a week and I was thinking “it happened twice?!”
Someone else will hopefully have more specific details on the situation.
In general the economic situation isn’t great due to the blockade since as an island nation they have to Import anything (like oil) that isn’t a natural resource on the island. Blackouts and other energy issues have been a problem due to that.
Trump recently increased the blockade and I know due to COVID their tourism industry was hit pretty hard.
Some silver linings to the situation:
China has provided solar panels that should help strengthen their grid and provide them a source of energy that can’t be blockaded.
They recently became a BRICS partner member which should hopefully give them some ability to trade even with the blockade.
Vietnam recently has raised millions in an ongoing effort to send donations to Cuba.
Edit:
Also if anyone is interested in learning more about Cuba and its history I’d recommend the podcast Blowback season 2.
Adding some links to explain how democracy and elections work in Cuba and why the government still has such large public support:
Good Video on the History of Cuban Elections and how they work.
Also Some other links below on recent news:
Good write-up!
I’m not sure it’s fair to say extreme, it’s still doing way better than Gaza, for example. But, it’s bad.
Any debate will be about why.
Can you just identify the news source? Say for example “CNN ran a story in which they said x, y, z about Cuba, is it true and where can I find other perspectives?” That way you don’t derail the conversation from the onset with the spectre of lIbErAl NeWs 👻
One source I found is this: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/22/americas/cuba-crisis-energy-economy-intl-latam
It was translated in Italian and shared by several Italian news outlets.
