The Coast Guard announced on October 2, 2026 that it had intercepted a fuel shipment bound for Cuba. In early September a Coast Guard tactical team boarded the Motor Vessel Grace in the Caribbean Sea and escorted it to Progreso, Mexico, where a Mexican Navy inspection team “confirmed the presence of large quantities of fuel in the vessel's ballast tanks,” the Coast Guard said. ABC News reported the Grace, a 300-foot tanker, was seized on September 5, and that the Coast Guard also seized the Cuba-bound Jaira Provider, carrying more than 200,000 gallons of fuel, on June 28. The Coast Guard said its operations against “dark fleet, stateless” and substandard vessels are conducted “In support of U.S. Government policy” and “consistent with customary international law as reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention.”
The seizures enforce a pressure campaign Trump began in January. Executive Order 14380 of January 29, 2026 declared a national emergency with respect to Cuba and set up a system of tariffs on countries that “directly or indirectly” provide oil to Cuba; a February order ended those tariff duties but left the national emergency in effect. Politico reported in March that the U.S. “has enforced a blockade around Cuba since January,” threatening others that try to send fuel and escorting away a tanker, and that the White House let a Russian tanker through “for humanitarian reasons.” ABC reported that the blockade, aimed at forcing changes to Cuba's political system, has led to a power crisis “marked by prolonged power outages impacting water supply, lighting, refrigeration and communications, according to U.S. officials.”
Cuba suffered island-wide blackouts in March and twice in early July. The Washington Examiner reported that the July 6 outage left roughly 10 million people without electricity, with the healthcare system among the services affected, and that its cause was unknown; Al Jazeera reported that the island's grid problems “intensified since January, when United States President Donald Trump effectively severed Cuba's supply of foreign oil.”