From the Soviet Union to East Germany to North Korea, The New York Times has a long and infamous history of going soft on communist countries. On Monday, one day after the anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, it added Cuba to the list.
Under the headline “Cut off from Fuel, Cuba is Still Surviving,” read the subheadline “President Trump has tried to strangle Cuba by blocking its oil imports. But six months later, the island is finding ways to endure.
That set the tone for the article. Amid stories of Cubans making their own fuel and using lithium batteries and Chinese solar panels and electric rickshaws, Mexico City bureau chief Jack Nicas knew who to blame for Cuba’s economic woes, “[Trump] imposed an oil blockade that has pushed the island into its worst ever energy crisis, with mass blackouts now lasting nearly all day. And yet, more than six months later, the Cuban government and people are still standing.”
Beyond Trump, Nicas blamed the U.S. for Cuba’s general state of affairs, “Over nearly seven decades of U.S. pressure, Cuba has defied the odds and improvised to survive. Now it seems that Mr. Trump, like many U.S. presidents before him, is also finding that toppling the government founded by Fidel Castro is not so simple.”
After highlighting some interviews with locals, Nicas returned to Trump:
Other than a single Russian oil tanker in March, allies have not been willing to test Washington’s effective oil blockade.
As a result, Cuba has been powering its electric grid solely with domestic oil and gas and a growing network of solar parks sponsored by China. Together, they are enough to support roughly half of Cuban demand, according to Jorge Piñón, who studies Cuban energy at the University of Texas.
Nobody Nicas interviewed put the blame solely on Cuba’s government. He wrote “Exhausted Cubans told us they were angry at both Havana and Washington. Yet no one said they planned to take to the streets. Aside from banging pots and pans, the Cuban people have hardly staged protests.”
That’s not true, but at least Nicas did find one man to tell him, “You go out to express your opinion on the street, and they throw you in jail or fine you.”
However, another man furthered the America-blaming by referring to his solar panels and rickshaw, “Now he can power the entire battery by parking it in the sun for a day. ‘To me, this is the future,’ he said. ‘We’re going to overcome the U.S. blockade.’”
On Tuesday, Nicas admitted in a video report that the electric grid was already failing due to government mismanagement, but still try to suggest Trump was most at fault, “It’s been more than six months since the Trump administration’s oil blockade on Cuba set off what is becoming a humanitarian crisis.”
Nicas's concession is also an understatement. Cuba’s 20+ hour per day blackouts predated the blockade.
In a separate article, Sam Sifton interviewed Nicas about his trip and whether the government had any say in the matter, “How hard was it to get your visa? Did government minders follow you around?
Nicas recalled insisting that he would be fair to the communists, “It took a lot of convincing to get. I met with top Cuban diplomats in Mexico City, Havana, Washington and New York over six months, and sent many letters, to persuade them that we would tell this story fairly. Once we got to Havana to report, we met with Cuban officials a few times, but they otherwise didn’t bother us. We traveled around freely, decided our story targets and chose whom we interviewed.”
Elsewhere in that interview, Nicas conceded “some saw the Cuban government at fault” for the country’s problems, but none of those people managed to make it into the main article.
