HAVANA — Independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council are accusing the United States of worsening Cuba’s humanitarian crisis through escalating economic pressure, as fuel shortages, prolonged blackouts and shortages of medicines strain essential services across the island.
In a statement released Thursday, the experts condemned recent U.S. measures and urged governments and civil society to act quickly to prevent conditions from deteriorating further.
“Food must never be used as an instrument of political pressure,” the experts said. “Measures that knowingly deprive a population of the means to survive strike at the most basic guarantees of the rights to life and diminish the core of human dignity.”
The experts serve under the Human Rights Council’s Special Procedures system and operate independently; they do not speak on behalf of the United Nations as an institution.
Washington Intensifies Pressure
The Trump administration has substantially increased economic pressure on Havana in 2026, particularly around Cuba’s access to energy.
In January, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency related to Cuba and established a mechanism allowing additional tariffs on imports from countries supplying oil to the island. The White House said Cuba represented an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security and foreign policy, citing its relationships with governments and organizations Washington considers hostile.
The tariff mechanism introduced in January was subsequently terminated in February as part of a broader White House move ending several tariff actions imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, but Washington continued tightening pressure through other measures.
On May 1, Trump signed an executive order expanding sanctions authorities across sectors including energy, defense, metals and mining, financial services and security. It also authorized sanctions against foreign financial institutions facilitating significant transactions for designated Cuban entities.
The administration says the measures are intended to hold Cuba’s leadership accountable for repression, corruption and activities it considers threatening to U.S. national security.
That campaign has continued. Reuters reported that the United States imposed sanctions on another six Cuban individuals and five entities on August 6.
Washington has nevertheless maintained some mechanisms intended to support humanitarian and private-sector activity. In February, the U.S. Treasury said it would adopt a favorable licensing policy for certain transactions involving the resale of Venezuelan-origin oil for humanitarian and Cuban private-sector use, while excluding transactions benefiting Cuban military, intelligence and other government-linked entities.
Energy Shortages Spread Through the Economy
The Human Rights Council-appointed experts argue that the consequences of restrictions on fuel extend far beyond the energy sector.
In an April communication to Washington, they said Cuba’s dependence on imported fuel meant shortages were affecting electricity generation, healthcare, water and sanitation, public transportation and food production and distribution.
“The impacts of the fuel blockade cut across all sectors of Cuban society,” the experts wrote.
The communication cited reports of more than 96,000 pending surgeries, including 11,000 involving children, as well as delays to childhood vaccinations. The experts explicitly noted that they did not wish to prejudge the accuracy of all allegations presented to them, while expressing “serious concerns” about the consequences for human rights.
Independent reporting has documented the severity of Cuba’s energy emergency.
Reuters reported this week that Cuba suffered another nationwide electricity-grid collapse, highlighting the fragility of an aging power system operating under acute fuel constraints.
AP has reported rolling blackouts lasting more than 20 hours a day in some areas, disrupting refrigeration, transportation, hospitals and other essential services.
Cuba produces only about 40% of the fuel it requires, according to AP, making the country heavily dependent on external supplies.
Health System Under Growing Pressure
Energy shortages are particularly consequential because disruptions can cascade through public services.
Hospitals require reliable electricity for operating rooms, diagnostic equipment, refrigeration, water supplies and medicine storage. Fuel shortages can also affect ambulances, medical deliveries and transportation for healthcare workers and patients.
The Human Rights Council experts argue that this interconnectedness makes it difficult to isolate restrictions on energy from their broader humanitarian consequences.
Their position reflects a longstanding principle within international human-rights frameworks that food should not be used as an instrument of political or economic pressure. The experts have gone further in their assessment of Cuba, arguing that recent U.S. measures raise serious questions under international law.
That legal interpretation remains contested, and Washington rejects the broader characterization of its policy as an unlawful assault on Cuba’s population.
Sanctions Are Only Part of Cuba’s Economic Crisis
Attributing Cuba’s deterioration entirely to U.S. policy, however, would overlook substantial domestic economic failures.
The island entered the latest confrontation after years of weak growth, declining productivity, deteriorating infrastructure, shortages of foreign currency and structural weaknesses within its heavily state-controlled economy.
The Financial Times reported in June that President Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledged publicly that Cuba’s economic problems could not all be blamed on U.S. sanctions.
He pointed to domestic “slowness, bureaucracy” and decisions that had been postponed, while calling for urgent economic reforms.
Cuba has since moved to expand opportunities for private businesses, foreign investment and private participation in state-owned enterprises — potentially among the most significant changes to its economic model in decades.
That makes the current crisis the product of overlapping pressures rather than a single cause: longstanding structural and governance weaknesses have left Cuba particularly vulnerable, while the loss of fuel supplies and tighter restrictions on international finance and commerce have further reduced its ability to absorb those shocks.
A Wider Debate Over Economic Coercion
The dispute over Cuba is increasingly becoming a broader test of how far economic pressure can be used as a foreign-policy tool without creating unacceptable civilian consequences.
The Trump administration argues that the Cuban government’s political and economic system bears primary responsibility for the country’s deterioration and says its policies are intended to pressure the leadership while preserving avenues for humanitarian and private-sector activity.
The Human Rights Council experts counter that restrictions affecting fuel, food, finance and trade cannot be cleanly separated from their effects on the wider population.
Cuba’s crisis cannot be explained by U.S. sanctions alone. But as energy shortages increasingly affect healthcare, transportation, water and food systems, the humanitarian consequences of economic coercion are becoming a more central part of the international debate over Washington’s Cuba policy.
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