Cuba Is Rationing Food. Officials Blame US Embargo

The Cuban government announced Friday that it's launching widespread rationing of chicken, eggs, rice, beans, soap, and other basic products in the face of a grave economic crisis. Commerce Minister Betsy Diaz Velazquez told the state-run Cuban News Agency that various forms of rationing would be employed in order to deal with shortages of staple foods, the AP reports. She blamed the hardening of the US trade embargo by the Trump administration. Economists give equal or greater blame to a plunge in aid from Venezuela, where the collapse of the state-run oil company has led to a nearly two-thirds cut in shipments of subsidized fuel that Cuba used for power and to earn hard currency on the open market. "We're calling for calm," Diaz said. "It's not a product that will be absent from the market in any way."

Cuba imports roughly two-thirds of its food at an annual cost of more than $2 billion, and brief shortages of individual products have been common for years. In recent months, a growing number of products have started to go missing for days or weeks at a time, and long lines have sprung up within minutes of the appearance of scarce products like chicken or flour. Many shoppers find themselves still standing in line when the products run out, a problem the government has been blaming on "hoarders." "The country's going through a tough moment. This is the right response," said one 56-year-old tobacco-factory worker. Read more here. (More Cuba stories.)