The US energy blockade on Cuba pulls the plug on Havana’s legendary nightlife

“I feel empty inside when I see my streets empty,” said Yusleydi Blanco, a 41-year-old accountant. “I can’t be happy when my country is sad.”

‘Worse than the Special Period’

Following a 2016 deal between then-Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro easing U.S. travel restrictions on Cuba, money flooded the island as tourism spiked. A small number of entrepreneurs opened newly allowed private businesses and bought imported modern vehicles that shared the streets with classic cars from the 1950s.

In 2018, a record 4.7 million tourists arrived on the island. Hotel accommodations were so saturated that travelers without lodging were seen sleeping in a park in the small western Cuban town of Viñales that draws thousands of tourists and rock climbers to its scenic limestone cliffs.

Today, gasoline sales are limited to 20 liters (5 gallons) per vehicle and owners can wait months for a turn at the pump. Buses now stop running at 6 p.m. and international airlines including Air France, Air Canada and Iberia have stopped flying to Havana because they can’t refuel there. The sound of cars has disappeared in the wealthy El Vedado neighborhood, where the soundscape of chirping birds has reemerged.

The Cuban government reported the arrival of 77,600 tourists in February, down from 178,000 on the same month a year ago.

“This is worse than the Special Period," said 65-year-old parking attendant Dolores de la Caridad Méndez about the years of economic devastation that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba's Cold War patron, in the 1990s.

‘Testing everyone's stamina'

In contrast with his Democratic predecessors, U.S. President Donald Trump has tightened economic sanctions against Cuba, demanding an end to political repression, a release of political prisoners and a liberalization of the island’s ailing economy.

The deepening crisis has led to persistent blackouts, cuts to the state-run food ration system, and severe shortages of water and medicine that have transformed daily life into an ordeal for many in the island of 10 million. Between 2021 and 2024, approximately 1.4 million Cubans left the island — mostly young people but also accomplished musicians, actors, dancers and other entertainers who fueled Havana's nightlife.

In January, the U.S. captured then-President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, which had been Cuba's primary supplier of oil. The Trump administration severed that supply and threatened to impose tariffs on other countries that sold oil to Cuba, which went without a single shipment until a Russian tanker came in March.

For entrepreneurs and business owners across the island, life has become difficult as tourism plummeted and their hopes of selling cheaper goods to fellow Cubans dashed against the rocks of a vastly harder economic reality.

“You wake up and you're ready to conquer the world, saying, ‘Today I’ll sell more than ever,'” said Yeni Pérez, owner of the Old Havana cafe Entre Nos. “Then not a single client comes in and you go home devastated.”

“The next day,” she said, “You say, ‘Let’s give it another chance.' It's a time that's testing everyone's stamina."

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america