Trash is piling up across Havana because the city’s garbage trucks have run out of fuel.
But in one neighborhood, garbage collection now runs on solar power.
As the U.S. oil blockade keeps fuel from reaching Cuba, one local business is finding a new way to keep the streets clean.
Also this week:
Hegseth Gaslights Cuba on Counternarcotics
Saber-Rattling, Same Old Economic War
Who's Threatening Whom?
Dominican Republic Expels Cuban Diplomats
Turkish Airlines to Resume Cuba Flights
Anti-Embargo Democrat Wins Florida Senate Primary
Belly of the Beast Recommends
Solar-Powered Tricycles Keep Havana Streets Clean
Garbage has piled up on Havana’s street corners for months, a byproduct of the fuel shortages that have ground the Cuban government’s waste collection to a halt since the Trump administration imposed its oil blockade on the island.
In Vedado, one local business has stepped up to provide a solution — solar-powered tricycles.
El Rampeño uses electric tricycles and trucks to collect trash door-to-door. Customers pay 100 pesos a month, or roughly 14 cents. Vulnerable households receive the service for free.
“Due to the situation with the United States, especially the fuel issue, the government doesn’t have enough fuel to collect the garbage,” said Yasiel Hernández, El Rampeño’s president.
The neighbors have noticed the difference.
“This corner was full of trash,” one resident said. “Now it’s not anymore."
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Asked last week to name one country from which he wanted greater cooperation on counternarcotics, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth singled out Cuba.
“Countries like Cuba are on notice,” Hegseth said.
There’s just one problem with Hegseth’s warning: Cuba may already be the U.S. government’s most reliable partner in counternarcotics efforts.
According to the State Department’s 2024 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, drug traffickers steer clear of the island due to the Cuban government’s “robust and aggressive security presence,” which stops transnational criminal organizations from gaining a foothold.
Watch our video about how the Trump administration scrubbed Cuba from its 2025 counternarcotics report — along with any acknowledgment of the island’s long track record of protecting U.S. borders from drug trafficking.
In another interview that same day, Hegseth warned that “all options” for Cuba, including military intervention, remain on the table.
Meanwhile, anonymous U.S. officials told Bloomberg that the administration is increasingly focused on sanctions — not military action — to cut off all remaining sources of revenue to the Cuban government. The objective is reportedly to create fractures within the country’s leadership to force a negotiation on Trump’s terms.
This strategy is not new. Washington has subjected Cuba to economic warfare for more than 65 years, with no results to show for it except the shortages and hardships suffered by people on the island.
The U.S. government’s economic siege has intensified this year, as the oil blockade and ramped up “secondary sanctions” have caused repeated nationwide blackouts and shortages of food, fuel and medicine. United Nations human rights experts have warned that the measures are causing a "full-blown crisis."
Who's Threatening Whom?
On Fox News, Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently described Cuba as both a “failed state” and an “influence and espionage superpower.”
Host Lara Trump went further, claiming that Cuba’s goal is to “erase the United States from the Earth.”
The interview served to promote a 100-page State Department report accusing Cuba of influencing virtually every major progressive movement, organization and protest in the United States over the last six decades. Even Belly of the Beast was mentioned in the report.
As the Trump administration continues expanding sanctions while portraying the besieged island as an intelligence juggernaut with seemingly limitless reach inside the U.S., our latest video asks: who is threatening whom?
In this video, journalist Yohan Rodríguez breaks down the farcical claims by Trump and Rubio, which are used to justify current U.S. policy.
The Dominican Republic ordered nine Cuban diplomats and their families to leave the country last week.
Dominican officials said the move was “in line with international law,” but have not given a reason for the diplomatic rupture.
The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the decision a “submission to pressure from the U.S. government in its efforts to isolate Cuba.”
The expulsion makes the Dominican Republic the latest country to align with the Trump administration against Cuba, after Colombia and Ecuador severed diplomatic ties with the island in recent months.
Turkish Airlines to Resume Cuba Flights
Turkish Airlines announced plans to resume passenger service to Havana on October 25, restoring a key route that was popular for tourists wanting to travel to Cuba from Moscow via Istanbul. The airline suspended its flights to Cuba nearly seven months ago amid an aviation-fuel shortage that began shortly after the Trump-imposed oil blockade.
It remains unclear where the Turkish Airlines planes will obtain fuel for the return journey if they cannot find it in Cuba.
Eleven carriers halted passenger service to the island this spring. Some international airlines have been forced to make refueling stops in the Dominican Republic or carry additional fuel.
This year’s collapse in air travel has deepened a tourism crisis that has steadily worsened since “maximum pressure” sanctions were introduced by the first Trump administration. Cuba welcomed 4.3 million international visitors in 2019, but only 2.2 million in 2024. During the first half of 2026, the island received just 387,000 visitors, a 61 percent decline from the same period last year.
Anti-Embargo Democrat Wins FL Senate Primary
Florida state representative Angie Nixon won the Democratic nomination Tuesday night for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in 2025 and since held by Ashley Moody.
Nixon supports restoring Obama-era engagement with Cuba and has said she is open to lifting the U.S. embargo on the island. She has argued that sanctions prevent ordinary Cubans from accessing food and medical care.
Though Cuba policy did not define the race, Nixon’s victory shows that openly opposing the U.S. economic war on Cuba does not automatically disqualify a candidate in a statewide Democratic primary in Florida.
Nixon will face Republican Sen. Ashley Moody in November. Moody cosponsored legislation calling for “severe sanctions and unprecedented financial pressure” against Cuba and joined the press conference at which the Trump administration announced a federal indictment against former Cuban President Raúl Castro.
Belly of the Beast Recommends
Writing for The Hill, Lee Schlenker warns that Washington’s war on Cuba has already begun in the form of an economic siege that is devastating the island without congressional authorization. He writes that a pending Senate war powers resolution is one of Congress’s last opportunities to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.
Concerned Veterans for America called for diplomacy and greater economic engagement with Cuba, arguing that six decades of embargo have failed to produce political change while causing shortages and costing U.S. businesses hundreds of millions of dollars each year. The group also warns against military intervention, which could require tens of thousands of U.S. troops and years of occupation.
The Alliance for Cuba Engagement and Respect (ACERE) is urging U.S. organizations, national security experts and former government officials to sign a letter urging the Trump administration to choose diplomacy with Cuba instead of war. See the letter HERE.
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Boletines en Español | English Newsletters Archives La basura se acumula en toda La Habana porque los camiones recolectores se han quedado sin combustible. Pero en un barrio, la recogida de basura ahora funciona con energía solar. Mientras el bloqueo petrolero estadounidense impide que el combustible llegue a Cuba, un negocio local está encontrando una nueva forma de mantener limpias las calles. También esta semana: Hegseth manipula a Cuba en materia de lucha contra el narcotráfico. Amenazas...
Boletines en Español | English Newsletters Archives La administración Trump está promocionando un paquete de ayuda de 100 millones de dólares para Cuba, que en su mayor parte está siendo distribuida por organizaciones benéficas de la Iglesia Católica. Pero esta ayuda es una gota en el océano comparada con el daño causado por las sanciones estadounidenses y el bloqueo petrolero, que han sumido al país en una crisis humanitaria. En nuestro último video, el periodista de Belly of the Beast Yohan...
English Newsletters Archives | Boletines en Español The Trump administration is touting a $100 million aid package for Cuba, most of which is being distributed by Catholic Church charities. But the aid is a drop in the bucket compared to the damage caused by U.S. sanctions and an oil blockade that has plunged the country into a humanitarian crisis. In our latest video, Belly of the Beast journalist Yohan Rodríguez reports from Bejucal, a town on the outskirts of Havana, where residents...
