The United States on Wednesday renewed an offer of $100 million in aid to Cuba, pressuring its longtime foe to cooperate as it overcomes an economic crisis that has included prolonged power outages.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in Rome last week that Cuba had rejected an offer of $100 million in aid, which the communist government in Havana denied.
The State Department publicly renewed the proposal on Wednesday, which comes after the United States imposed new sanctions on a key part of Cuba’s state-controlled economy.
“The regime refuses to allow the United States to provide this assistance to the Cuban people, who are in desperate need of assistance because of the failures of Cuba’s corrupt regime,” the State Department said.
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“The decision rests with the Cuban regime whether to accept our offer of assistance or reject critical (life) saving aid and ultimately answer to the Cuban people for standing in the way of critical aid,” the statement said.
It said the support would include direct humanitarian aid from the United States and funding for “fast and free” internet access – likely to benefit dissidents in the one-party state that restricts the media.
The United States was working to promote “meaningful reforms” in Cuba, according to the statement.
– Energy problems –
Cuba’s electricity supplies are falling to new lows, according to data compiled by AFP, with extended blackouts and record production outages in recent days.
Sixty-five percent of Cuban territory endured simultaneous power outages, according to data on Tuesday.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledged the “particularly tense” situation on Wednesday, but placed the blame squarely on the United States.
“This dramatic deterioration has only one cause: the genocidal energy blockade the United States is subjecting our country to and threatening irrational tariffs against any nation that supplies us with fuel,” he wrote on X.
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Cuba’s economic woes intensified in January after the United States ousted Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolas Maduro, whose government provided about half of the island’s fuel consumption.
Since then, only one Russian tanker has arrived in Cuba,
President Donald Trump’s administration has already provided $6 million in humanitarian aid to Cuba, but channeled it through a Catholic church charity that has long acted as an intermediary between the two countries.
After Rubio’s initial comments in Rome, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said the offer was a “lie” that “nobody here knows anything about.”
“Will it be a gift, a scam or a dirty deal that limits our independence? Wouldn’t it be easier to lift the fuel embargo?” Rodriguez wrote on X.
Rubio, a Cuban-American who has been vocal in his opposition to the communist system established by Fidel Castro, is widely reported to be in touch with segments of the Cuban elite in hopes of instigating change.
Trump has publicly considered taking over the island, which has been under an almost continuous US embargo since Castro’s 1959 revolution.
Last week, the United States imposed sanctions on a Cuban military conglomerate that controls nearly 40 percent of the economy after Trump signed an order punishing all foreign banks that do business with entities on the U.S. blacklist.
