Cuba's Fragile Power Grid Finds a Powerful New Partner

Summary

Cuba finally reconnected its power supply on Tuesday after an extended blackout swept the island as the United States tried to choke off the island’s energy supply. Blackouts lasted nearly 30 hours as Donald Trump engineered an oil blockade and publicly ruminated about whether he would have the “honor of taking Cuba.” But the move, rather than isolating Cuba, may have just deepened its ties with China.Cuba, which is already beleaguered with an obsolete and fragile power system, saw its grid collapse under the weight of the weekslong oil blockade. The Caribbean island nation’s energy system uses about 100,000 barrels of oil a day to power aging and ‘decrepit’ thermal power plants that the country received from the former Soviet Union. Cuban leadership has not publicly stated what caused the island’s power grid to go dark on Monday, but the issues are likely to persist as the United States’ aggression continues. Once energy was restored 29 hours later, President Miguel Diaz-Canel blasted Washington’s "almost daily public threats against Cuba." The Trump administration has been vocal about its desire to oust the communist leader. However, experts warn that this would merely topple the figurehead of a country teetering on the edge of humanitarian collapse without actually doing anything to dismantle its political system. On Tuesday, Diaz-Canel wrote on social media that United States officials “intend to announce plans to take over the country, its resources, its properties, and even the very economy they seek to suffocate in order to force us to surrender.”But while Cuba may be David to the United States’ Goliath, it has one very powerful ally. “As the Trump administration steps back from U.S. climate commitments and reinvests in fossil fuels, China is flexing its dominance in renewable energy, using offers of equipment, expertise and financing as geopolitical levers,” the Washington Post wrote in a Wednesday report.Related: The Invisible Metals Powering a Trillion-Dol...