{"id":271500,"date":"2026-05-14T22:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T22:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/271500\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T22:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T22:53:10","slug":"cuban-americans-in-south-florida-weigh-in-on-u-s-plan-to-send-100-million-in-aid-amid-worsening-fuel-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/271500\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuban Americans in South Florida weigh in on U.S. plan to send $100 million in aid amid worsening fuel crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prolonged blackouts in Havana and across Cuba have led to protests as the government warned citizens that it is mostly out of fuel to run the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/cuba-power-grid-collapses-eastern-provinces-major-blackout\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">power grid.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The mounting crisis prompted Cuba&#8217;s president to signal the country would consider accepting a $100 million aid package from the United States, though details have yet to be worked out.<\/p>\n<p>The news emerged following the government&#8217;s confirmation that it hosted a U.S. delegation that included CIA Director John Ratcliffe.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A CIA official told CBS News that Ratcliffe discussed with Cuban officials &#8220;intelligence cooperation, economic stability, and security issues, all against the backdrop that Cuba can no longer be a safe haven for adversaries in the Western Hemisphere.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Cuban government blames the lack of fuel on U.S. restrictions on oil imports, which it says are part of former President Donald Trump&#8217;s pressure campaign on the Cuban regime.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. strategy has divided opinions in South Florida.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They should squeeze [the regime] more until Cuba changes,&#8221; said Mario Cabera, a patron of Versailles restaurant in Miami&#8217;s Little Havana.<\/p>\n<p>But others, like Carlos Horan, disagreed with the tactic. &#8220;What are they going to do if they can&#8217;t get fuel? I&#8217;m totally against the Cuban regime, but what the U.S. is doing is the wrong thing,&#8221; Horan said.<\/p>\n<p>On top of existing shortages of food and medicine, experts say oil is not the only problem: the nation&#8217;s power grid is falling apart.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s going to get to the point where there&#8217;s no electricity in Cuba,&#8221; said Andy Gomez, a professor of Cuba studies at the University of Miami.<\/p>\n<p>Gomez suggested the dire situation may be forcing difficult choices within the government. &#8220;I think this is the worst. I have to believe there are conversations going on within the inner circle, &#8216;we have no choice'&#8221;. However, he cautioned that regime change remains difficult as long as military support for the Cuban government is intact.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prolonged blackouts in Havana and across Cuba have led to protests as the government warned citizens that it&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[116275,1016,409,28,30,29,15403,123,807],"class_list":["post-271500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-central-intelligence-agency","tag-cuba","tag-donald-trump","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-little-havana","tag-miami","tag-south-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}