Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Cuba is in crisis. Since January, the U.S. has been preventing almost all oil from reaching the island.
Doctors can't get to the hospitals where they work. Many buses aren't running.
Chapter 2: What is the current economic crisis facing Cuba?
Trucks can't deliver food and medicine where they're needed. People's lives are in danger because there are frequent and long blackouts.
In the last few weeks, on more than one occasion, the entire country has lacked power.
Chapter 3: How have recent U.S. policies affected Cuba's economy?
In one case, for more than a full day.
We wanted to understand what it's like for people trying to make their way in Cuba right now, what it's like to try to work or to run a business.
Because even though Cuba has a communist government, at times it's also had a pretty thriving private business sector.
But recently, these blackouts have become so frequent that it's hard to even charge your phone. Self-service and Internet are spotty. So I've been talking to people through voice notes. Like this farmer, Lady Casimiro, who says she can only use her phone for about two hours a day and never knows when.
She also told us right now she has no gas, so she can't get to the other farmers she works with.
A hotel manager named Wilfredo Medeiros-Garcia told me when the electricity's out, you have to keep the fridge closed. Try not to open it. And then, when the electricity comes back on, you jump into action.
A lot of people said that if the power comes on in the middle of the night, that's when they cook. That's when they work on their computers, use their phone.
Like this guy who runs a bicycle business.
Hello Erika, my name is Yacer González Cabrera.
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Chapter 4: What historical economic strategies has Cuba employed?
And now when Ricardo goes back to visit, he says it seems Cuba's rich are getting richer. You see Teslas and Escalades on the streets. But he says Cuba's poor are also getting poorer.
Things that were unthinkable in Cuba before, and I say with sorrow, I'm not proud about those, You know, beggars, people like looking for food in trash cans. That's become very common. Trash was piling up.
Ricardo says that's the Cuba he saw the last time he was there in 2025.
And then at the start of this year, the U.S. captured the president of Venezuela and essentially took over its oil industry. So that lifeline Cuba was getting from its best compadre was yanked away.
The Trump administration told Venezuela no more oil for Cuba. And they told other countries that would have sold oil to Cuba, like Mexico, that if they do, they will get tariffed. Then this week, after several months preventing any oil tanker from reaching Cuba, President Trump changed his mind, decided, yes, yes. he would let a tanker from Russia land on Cuba's shores.
Ricardo says it seems Cuba is at the mercy of the U.S.
The oil embargo... has exposed all the vulnerabilities of Cuba at once.
U.S. foreign policy is choking off much of the help the Cuban government gets from its allies. And Cuba's big industry, tourism, requires tourists who either can't or won't visit a country whose antiquated Soviet electrical system definitely cannot survive a U.S. oil embargo.
So now you are confronting your two real challenges. One is a dysfunctional economy at home and then the U.S. government 90 miles away. The only way out for Cuba is through a negotiation with the United States.
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