HAVANA - The US-imposed oil blockade on Cuba is upending the lives of everyday workers, who are switching jobs and ditching their cars to make due amid rolling blackouts and fuel shortages.
Since toppling Venezuela's leftist leader Nicolas Maduro in January, the United States has stopped the new authorities in Caracas from shipping oil to Cuba and threatened to sanction any other country that does.
The result is a crushing energy crisis in a country that has for years battled extended power cuts and shortages of fuel, medicine and food.
Vehicle owners have access to 20 litres of gasoline through a mobile application that organises distribution -- but it can take months.
Cuba, which has faced a US trade embargo since 1962, has said it would maintain public sector salaries for the time being, but has instituted a four-day work week as transportation woes bite.
Diesel sales are banned and gasoline sales are restricted under the emergency measures instituted by the government to deal with the crisis.
Many self-employed, private sector and informal workers are barely hanging on.
According to research by the private consulting firm Auge, 96.4 percent of the country's small and medium-sized private businesses are feeling "severe" or "catastrophic" impacts from the fuel shortage.
Local crude production, at roughly 40,000 barrels per day, barely allows the country's power plants to operate.
The lack of diesel has pinched electric generators that previously supplemented production.
Solar has increased since early 2026 among those who can afford it -- while others turn to charcoal or cook over open fires.
Even before the US blockade, an AFP analysis of official statistics found that the island generated only half the electricity it needed last year.
The crisis has trickled down to fruit and vegetable vendors in a country that imports 80 percent of its food.