Ada Peralta

I think everyone's thinking the same thing.

They're looking at Venezuela, where the United States had indicted now former President Nicolás Maduro of drug trafficking.

And this January, American soldiers swooped into Caracas and they brought him to a jail in Brooklyn.

I spoke to Michael Bustamante, who studies Cuba at the University of Miami, and he says clearly the U.S.

has been ratcheting up pressure on the Cubans.

The U.S.

has enacted a de facto oil blockade.

They've announced new sanctions on basically the whole Cuban leadership.

And Bustamante says the thing the Trump administration was missing was a pretext for some kind of military action.

And this might be exactly that.

Videos posted on social media show Cubans banging on pots on the streets in Havana.

Protesters complained that their homes were hot and that internet service had been disrupted.

Vicente de la O. Levy, Cuba's Minister of Energy, said the electrical grid is going through one of its most trying moments.

The U.S.

has enacted a de facto oil blockade and the 100,000 tons of Russian crude that arrived in April has now been used up.

The energy minister says the system is now operating basically without reserves.

Cuba is also relying on its solar panels, but its aging energy grid can't handle the fluctuating voltage.

It means that for now, about 70% of the island is without power.

Ada Peralta, NPR News, Mexico City.

During an address on state television, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel admitted for the first time that the Cuban government was in direct negotiations with the U.S.