In 2026 the US tightened its measures against Cuba. At the same time hardship in the country is growing for reasons that do not come from outside as well. An overview that shows both.
What changed from outside in 2026
On 29 January 2026 the US President declared a national emergency with respect to Cuba in Executive Order 14380. It allows additional tariffs on countries that supply oil to Cuba directly or indirectly. As grounds, the order cites the Cuban government’s alignment with Russia, China and Iran, foreign intelligence services on the island, and human rights abuses and political repression. A further order of 1 May 2026 allows sanctions on foreign companies, banks and individuals doing business with the Cuban government in energy, defence, mining, finance or security.
On 28 October 2026 the UN General Assembly called for an end to the embargo for the 34th time: 130 states voted in favour, 17 against and 25 abstained. A year earlier there were 165 votes in favour.
What the country lacks
By 3 August 2026 the power grid had collapsed nationwide six times. After her visit in November 2025, the UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan described shortages of medicines, food, fuel and spare parts and the emigration of doctors, teachers and engineers; she called on the US to end the sanctions. The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights disagreed: the hardship, it said, is caused by the communist system, not by sanctions from outside.
What blocks from within
A considerable part of the recent hardship is home-made. In 2021 the currency reform “Tarea Ordenamiento” devalued the peso by an order of 2,300 percent and triggered severe inflation. State rules for the economy and trade and tight limits on private initiative add to this. Amnesty International documents people imprisoned for political reasons and on 19 January 2026 called the releases of 2025 selective.
The discipline of numbers
Before the United Nations the Cuban government puts the damage caused by the embargo at an order of 147 to 164 billion US dollars. According to the working paper, this sum is methodologically inflated, among other things by an adjustment to the price of gold. Research finds that unilateral US sanctions reduce growth by 0.75 to 1 percentage points a year, over seven years 13.4 percent in total: real but limited harm. The robust question is not the sum over decades but the difference: what would disappear without the embargo, and what would remain?
Showing both
The week “Helfen statt Blockieren” sets both halves side by side and leaves judgement to the audience. The Cuban government speaks of the “bloqueo”, the United Nations of the embargo; we use “US embargo”.
Sources
- Baker McKenzie Sanctions News, report on Executive Order 14380 of 29.1.2026, 4.2.2026
- CiberCuba, report on the order of 1.5.2026, 1.5.2026
- United Nations, General Assembly, 28.10.2026; figures from UNI (29.10.2026) and NTN24
- Bloomberg Línea, 3.8.2026 (sixth nationwide blackout of 2026)
- OHCHR, statement of Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan, November 2025 (report by Devdiscourse, 24.11.2025)
- CiberCuba, reply of the Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos to the Special Rapporteur, November 2025
- Amnesty International, “Cuba: a un año de excarcelaciones selectivas …”, 19.1.2026
- Neuenkirch and Neumeier, “The impact of UN and US economic sanctions on GDP growth”, European Journal of Political Economy 40 (2015)
accessed 2 November 2026