Cuba hit by widespread blackout; Ecuador expels Havana’s ambassador, staff

A power outage has struck most of Cuba, including the capital Havana, the state electric utility said, as the administration of United States President Donald Trump continues its attempts to cripple the Caribbean nation by curtailing vital oil shipments.

News of the widespread power outage on Wednesday emerged as the country’s diplomatic relations with Latin American neighbour Ecuador plummeted after the expulsion of Havana’s top envoy and diplomatic staff from the Ecuadorian capital Quito was announced.

Cuban state media outlet Cubadebate said the blackout was caused by a fault at the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, located about 100km (62 miles) east of Havana, which cut electricity from Pinar del Rio in the far west of the country to the eastern Las Tunas province.

In all, two-thirds of the country, including Havana, were left without power, according to the national electric company UNE, which said it was working to restore services.

In Havana, the outage briefly took Cuban state TV off the air. Its afternoon national news broadcast started more than half an hour after its scheduled airtime, with a presenter explaining the delay was due to the blackout.

Cuba’s electricity generation system has been in shambles for years. Daily power outages of up to 20 hours are the norm in parts of the impoverished island, which lacks the fuel needed to generate power.

The electricity crisis has become more acute since the US abducted Cuba’s top ally, President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, in January.

Venezuela had supplied about half of Cuba’s fuel, but Washington cut off that supply after abducting Maduro and imposing an oil embargo on Havana, which it has eased somewhat, amid warnings from other Caribbean countries that it could trigger an economic collapse in the country.

The fuel scarcity has also forced Cuba’s government to ration key services, including waste collection and public transportation.

Trump’s ‘friendly takeover’ of Cuba

In another sign of intense US pressure, Ecuador declared Cuban Ambassador Basilio Gutierrez and his diplomatic staff “persona non grata”, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday, giving them 48 hours to leave the country.

Authorities did not explain why Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa’s government made the decision, but cited Article 9 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which allows a country to declare – at any time – any member of a diplomatic mission persona non grata – unwelcome or unacceptable – in the receiving country.

President Noboa is a close ally of US President Donald Trump, who in recent days suggested that the US could carry out a “friendly takeover” of Cuba.

Ecuador did not address whether the move against the Cuban embassy implied a formal break in diplomatic relations with Havana.

Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla fired back in a post on social media, saying he rejected “in the strongest terms the arbitrary and unjustified decision of the government of Ecuador to expel all personnel from the Cuban Embassy in that country”.

“It does not seem coincidental that this decision was taken in a context characterised by the intensification of US aggression against Cuba and the strong pressures from that country’s government on third states to join that policy,” he said on the X platform.