Cuba Says U.S. Embargo Caused $8 Billion in Damage in One Year
At a maternity hospital in Cuba, anesthesiologist Dr. Yudmila Rodríguez Verdecia describes what happens when electricity fails during an operation.
“The surgery cannot be stopped. We have had to keep operating under the glow of cell phone flashlights,” she says in Cuba’s latest annual report to the United Nations.
The Cuban government calculates that U.S. economic warfare caused $8.083 billion in damage between March 2025 and February 2026, bringing its estimate of the cumulative cost of U.S. policy since Cuba’s 1959 revolution to $178.7 billion.
Watch Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla explain the damages.
In addition to the six-decade-old embargo, the report points to a web of financial restrictions, the State Sponsors of Terrorism designation, the 1996 Helms-Burton Act and a de facto oil blockade that restrict access to essential goods and services.
Licet Rodríguez Alonso, who accompanies her son Diego between Villa Clara and Havana for cancer care, says fuel shortages from the U.S. oil blockade make her worry if his treatment can continue.
“Diego is in radiation [therapy], but there’s no fuel,” she says. “How will those machines run?”
Other medical supplies are already in Cuba but cannot reliably reach patients. According to the report, more than 30,000 children have been unable to receive vaccinations on schedule because fuel shortages have disrupted refrigerated transport, leaving medications stuck in warehouses.
The lack of fuel also affects food production. During the growing season ending in early 2026, irrigation operated for an average of just two hours a day rather than the 16 hours needed, the report says.
Meanwhile, UN agencies cited in the report describe disrupted shipments of more than 2,900 metric tons of food aid and $630,000 worth of medical supplies.
Shipping companies Hapag-Lloyd (Germany) and CMA CGM (France) stopped accepting new shipments to Cuba following Trump’s May 1 executive order threatening “secondary sanctions” on foreign companies doing business with blacklisted Cuban entities.
The report also identifies obstacles to buying and maintaining medical equipment. It says that due to payment restrictions and sanctions threats, the price of Japanese-made Olympus endoscopy equipment costs ten times more in Cuba than in other Latin American countries.
Baxter Healthcare (U.S.) and Vitalmex Interamericana (Mexico) cited the blockade in refusing to continue doing business with Cuba, while U.S.-made cardiac pumps remain “out of reach” to children with severe heart conditions.
The report describes a shortage of working Braille machines for blind students. Meanwhile, deaf students are unable to access cochlear implants because of broken components or missing batteries.
Read the full report HERE.