古巴全国停电：特朗普"断了"古巴的石油

Today, we're talking about something bad that's happening in Cuba.

Cuba is a country, not very big, not far from the US.

Right now, Cuba is in a bad way.

At night, many places are dark.

There's no power at home, and none outside either.

Cuba — how did it lose its power?

Because Cuba has run out of oil.

This month, Cuba has had two nationwide blackouts already.

So far this year, there have been four in all.

Whenever the power goes, Cuba's nights fall dark.

Generating power needs oil; without oil, no power can be made.

Cuba has little oil of its own; much of it must be bought from other countries.

But right now, Cuba can no longer buy oil.

Here's where the US and Trump come in.

Early this year, Trump barred other countries from selling oil to Cuba.

He said: whoever sells oil to Cuba, the US will hit with steep tariffs.

Many countries, afraid of the US, stopped daring to sell.

In the past, a country called Venezuela had long helped Cuba.

But later, Trump moved against Venezuela too.

Venezuela, unable to fend for itself, stopped giving Cuba oil.

And so Cuba's oil dwindled, until finally there was none left.

From early this year until now, only one Russian ship has delivered oil to Cuba, once.

In fact, Cuba's power grid is old too — much of it decades old, already prone to failing.

Now, with no oil either, it's misfortune piled on misfortune.

What's more worrying is the lives of ordinary Cubans.

Cuba is very hot, but with no power, people can't even run a fan at home.

More serious still are the hospitals.

Without power, many patients are in danger.

Without power, refrigerators can't run, so many medicines spoil.

Without power, water can't be pumped up either, and some homes have no clean water at all.

A UN official said: because of the lack of medicine, some children are dying.

It's a heartbreaking thing to hear.

An ordinary Cuban has done nothing wrong — they just want to live an ordinary life.

So why is Trump doing this?

For many years, Cuba and the US haven't gotten along.

Trump figures: if Cuba stays without power and life becomes unbearable, Cubans may want to change their government.

So he's using this to pressure Cuba.

But many say that with such tactics, the ones who suffer most in the end are ordinary Cubans.

Under such heavy pressure, Cuba has kept looking for solutions.

It has begun some new reforms and bought a lot of solar equipment from China, hoping to generate power from the sun.

But all of this takes a long time.

In the meantime, Cubans can only get through, day by day, in the dark and the heat.

Okay, today we've learned what's happening in Cuba.

We hope Cubans can get through this hardship soon.