HAVANA -- After more than six decades of U.S. efforts to block trade with Cuba, the Trump administration's oil embargo has produced an unlikely result: The U.S. is now the island's primary fuel supplier.
Only one oil tanker, from Russia, has docked in Cuba since Trump's "ironclad energy blockade" began in January. By May, the Communist government said it had run out of fuel oil and diesel.
Yet U.S. fuel arriving in smaller shipments has kept cars, trucks and household generators running, a Wall Street Journal analysis of trade data and interviews with U.S. exporters, Cuban business owners and officials in Havana and the U.S. show. The Trump administration began allowing U.S. fuel sales to private businesses on the island just weeks after the embargo began. Since then, U.S. ports have shipped more than 1.6 million barrels of fuel, worth over $230 million, according to U.S. Census Bureau data through August.
The shipments have made U.S exporters a lifeline for Cuba's private businesses, even if some of the fuel reaches the very government Washington is trying to squeeze.
"It's ironic," said Carlos Luis Méndez, Cuba's deputy minister for foreign trade and investment. Washington, he told the Journal, appears intent on making Cuba dependent on U.S. fuel. It's "completely unacceptable," he said. A White House spokeswoman declined to respond to that allegation, but said that the administration is seeking a "fundamental change" in Cuba. The Treasury Department didn't respond to a request for comment.
Cuba's state-run economy is in its worst crisis since the Soviet Union's collapse in the 1990s. Fuel shortages have crippled economic output and halted public transport, increasing the island's dependence on its burgeoning private sector.
Small businesses are now taking over sectors previously restricted to state enterprises, including the distribution of food and other basic goods.
"Right now we are seeing a lot of cars and trucks driving in our streets because we have gasoline and fuel that's imported from the U.S.," said Oniel Díaz Castellanos, who runs a consulting service for businesses in Cuba. A few months ago, he said, "our streets were absolutely empty."
Cubans also now rely on U.S. fuel to keep their small power generators running as the government is unable to keep the lights on. Generators help Cubans keep food from spoiling and fans running amid scorching heat. Most Cubans still get electricity for only a few hours each day.
Dozens of U.S. companies, most based in south Florida, are cashing in and exporting gasoline, diesel, and related fuel products to Cuba, according to ImportGenius, a global trade data platform. Most shipments leave from Port Everglades and Jacksonville, Fla., and Houston.
Some exporters say that fuel shipments are a lucrative business, with profit margins exceeding 50% earlier in the year. Today, competition has intensified as more U.S. fuel has made its way to the island, squeezing margins to around 20%, they said. The exporters weren't willing to be identified, citing the political sensitivity of trading with Cuba, particularly in South Florida, where many Cuban-Americans oppose it.
A growing fleet of ships laden with ISO tanks and smaller fuel containers shuttles back and forth between the two countries, the Journal's analysis shows. The small loads are a quirk of U.S. regulations, which permit fuel shipments only to private companies and individuals under an exemption called Support for the Cuban People.
Once the fuel is offloaded at Mariel, the tanks and containers are transported by truck to private fuel distributors, who sell it to smaller businesses and individuals across the island.
Among them are a growing number of informal, privately run gas depots that have popped up across Havana, where most state-run gas stations remain closed because of U.S. sanctions against Cuban-government entities.
On a recent afternoon, cars pulled in and out of one such depot, a nondescript building in Havana that housed dozens of large plastic containers of fuel.
Many of these gas depots are now officially recognized private businesses. Cuba began legalizing private fuel sales earlier this year, first for wholesale sales only and now for retail too. It's a notable shift on an island where the state controls nearly the entire economy, from small bakeries to ports.
The government has also begun renting some gas stations owned by the state oil company Unión Cuba-Petróleo, or CUPET, to private businesses to distribute the imported fuel. Cuban government officials say these changes are intended to strengthen fuel distribution amid severe shortages imposed by the Trump administration.
Cuban officials have denied profiting directly from U.S. fuel exports bound for the island's private sector, but at least some of it is making its way into the hands of government-linked entities. During a Journal visit in September, two state-run gas stations were operating with long lines of cars spilling into the road. At one of them, drivers said they had reserved spots through CUPET's app.
"There is seepage right now," said John Kavulich, the president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a nonprofit group that tracks the Cuban business environment. "If you want zero fuel getting into the hands of the government, you'd have to shut it all down."
U.S. restrictions are hard to enforce in Cuba, where government and enterprise are deeply interconnected. The Trump administration has continued to add to the list of sanctioned companies almost weekly, forcing exporters to adjust to a growing pool of prohibited business partners.
Last month, U.S. authorities seized $3 million worth of fuel they said was being funneled to a state-owned enterprise. Cuba's government denies any involvement.
U.S. fuel currently meets only a fraction of Cuba's needs, which were long met by Venezuela. Those subsidized shipments stopped after U.S. forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro in January, and the blockade has kept other allies, such as Mexico, from filling the gap.
U.S. shipments also haven't alleviated the island's blackouts. About 40% of Cuba's electricity generation comes from seven interconnected power plants, which were built decades ago and have almost all been operating far longer than their intended lifespan.
"Those rely on Cuban oil and there's enough production in Cuba to meet their needs," said Jorge Piñon, a Cuban energy expert at the University of Texas.
Another 40% of the island's electricity comes from small power stations that run on imported fuel, and that is where the blockade bites hardest.
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