Cuba implements emergency measures to save fuel under US pressure

Havana's streets were eerily quiet Monday as emergency measures to conserve Cuba's fast-dwindling fuel supplies kicked in to counteract the paralysing effects of economic pressure from US President Donald Trump.

With oil supplies in a US stranglehold, the communist government has had to cut the work week for state-owned companies and reduce in-person school and university hours as it limited fuel sales.

Cuba warned ​international airlines that jet fuel will no longer be available on ‍the island beginning Tuesday. Air Canada said it was suspending service to the island starting Monday.

The government also announced the closure of certain hotels with low occupancy rates and the consolidation of tourists in other hotels.

“Hotels are being closed in Varadero,” Cuba's flagship beach resort, located 150km from Havana, “and in other provinces”, a professional in the sector who did not wish to give her name confirmed to AFP.

The few Cubans who were out and about in the capital Monday said they were worried.

"One wonders how long a country can live under such conditions," nurse Rosa Ramos, 37, said, adding the fuel-saving measures were creating "a lot of uncertainty".

With public transport also cut back, Ramos had been waiting for over an hour for a taxi or bus to get to work.

Users of private taxis noted that fares had shot up overnight from about 200 pesos (40 US cents) to 350 pesos.

The island of 9.6 million inhabitants, under a US trade embargo since 1962, has for years been mired in a severe economic crisis marked by extended power cuts and shortages of fuel, medicine and food.

It has now also been cut off from critical oil supplies from Venezuela, whose leader Nicolas Maduro was toppled in a deadly US military strike last month.

Trump has also threatened to impose tariffs on any country that provides oil to the island nation he has said is "ready to fall".

The resulting shortages have threatened to plunge Cuba into complete darkness, with power plants struggling to keep the lights on. 

On Sunday, it was announced long-haul flights will not be able to refuel on the island for at least a month.

'Cruel aggression'

Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Miami-born son of Cuban immigrants, have made no secret of their desire to bring about regime change in Havana.

Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez on Monday denounced the "cruel aggression" of the United States, which he said was aimed at "breaking the political will of the Cuban people".

"The situation is tough and will demand great sacrifice," said Rodriguez, reiterating Cuba's "willingness to engage in dialogue", though on its own terms.

Read moreCuba willing to talk with US but 'without pressure or preconditions'

On Sunday, Deputy Prime Minster Oscar Perez-Oliva Fraga announced a set of emergency measures to ration whatever fuel is left to "protect essential services for the population and indispensable economic activities".

He said these included food and electricity production and "fundamental activities that generate foreign currency".

The president of Mexico, which used to be Cuba's second-biggest oil provider after Venezuela, said Monday that sanctions that harm the people of Cuba were "not right".

"We will continue supporting them and taking all necessary diplomatic actions to restore oil shipments" to Cuba, Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters. 

"You cannot strangle a people like this – it's very unfair, very unfair."

Sheinbaum had previously warned of a humanitarian crisis in Cuba, but is keen to avoid putting her own country at risk of tariffs from the United States, Mexico's main trading partner.

Mexico is seeking an agreement with Washington that would allow it to resume oil exports to Havana. On Sunday, it sent two ships with over 800 tons of humanitarian aid.

The Kremlin, too, accused Washington on Monday of using "suffocating measures" against Cuba.

"We are discussing possible solutions with our Cuban friends, at least to provide whatever assistance we can," spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)