Cuban Peso Hits Record Low as Life Grinds to a Halt

There is more than one exchange rate in Cuba but the one that most people use is the informal rate. It could also be called the black market rate but it’s the one Cubans themselves set in online message apps when trying to buy or sell items.

The informal sale of everything from eggs to car parts – the country’s so-called black market – is a time-honored practice in crisis-stricken Cuba, where access to the most basic items such as milk, chicken, medicine and cleaning products has always been limited. The market is technically illegal, but the extent of illegality, in official eyes, can vary by the sort of items sold and how they were obtained.

Before the internet, such exchanges took place “through your contacts, your neighbors, your local community,” said Ricardo Torres, a Cuban and economics fellow at American University in Washington. “But now, through the internet, you get to reach out to an entire province.”

With shortages and economic turmoil at the worst they’ve been in years, the online marketplace “has exploded,” Torres said.

Bustling WhatsApp groups discuss the informal exchange rate, which provides more pesos per dollar or euro than the official bank rate.

Today, that black market rate hit a new low with the Cuban peso now trading at 500 per US dollar.

The currency hit 500 pesos to the dollar in informal channels, according to the independent news website El Toque, which provides regular updates on Cuba’s peso. That compares with about 400 last summer.

The informal rate — often negotiated on WhatsApp groups and between neighbors who bring cash from the U.S. or Europe — is used far more than the official exchange rates. Despite the government’s attempts to exert strict economic control, experts have long used the informal exchange rate as a gauge of the health of the Cuban economy…

The Cuban peso’s plunge in the informal market deals a blow to residents already struggling to scrape by. The average state salary is around 7,000 Cuban pesos — now about $14 on the informal market — and a carton of eggs costs 3,000 Cuban pesos.

The country is believed to be just a few weeks away from running out of oil. It has already announced that it has run out of jet fuel and won’t be able to refuel planes that land in at the country’s airports. That has led long-distance carriers to cancel flights.

The government of Cuba published the notices to airlines and pilots on Sunday night, warning that jet fuel wouldn’t be available at nine airports across the island, including José Martí International Airport in Havana, starting Tuesday and continuing until March 11…

On Monday, Air Canada announced it was suspending flights to the island, while other airlines announced delays and layovers in the Dominican Republic before flights continued to Havana.

One pilot added that while refueling issues have occurred before, an official announcement of this scale is extraordinary even for an island accustomed to perpetual crisis. The last time such cuts occurred — more than a decade ago — aircraft bound for Europe refueled in Nassau, Bahamas, the pilot recalled. Now, regional airlines could avoid problems by bringing extra fuel, while others could refuel in Cancun, Mexico, or in the Dominican Republic.

US airlines mostly won’t be affected by the shortage because flights are short enough to carry fuel for the return trip. Still, cancelations from Canada, Russia and Europe mean even less tourism and less foreign currency to prop up the failing economy. The Wall Street Journal reports life in Cuba is grinding to a halt.

The Caribbean island’s Communist authorities are rationing dwindling fuel supplies, curtailing public transportation and furloughing workers. Children are being sent home from school early, people can barely afford basic food like milk and chicken, and long lines have sprung up at gas stations.

Cuba’s crucial tourism industry is paralyzed. Some popular hotels, crippled by ongoing blackouts, have begun to shut down, ferrying remaining guests to other lodging, according to Russia’s tour-operator agency…

For Cubans, the breakdown has been punishing. Most Cubans are living with increasingly severe blackouts. On a recent Saturday morning, one of the main arteries in one of the busiest neighborhoods in Havana was empty save for one vehicle…

Jorge Piñón, an expert on Cuban energy at the University of Texas who tracks oil shipments to the island, believes a collapse is imminent because oil will completely run out by April at the latest.

“In Cuba, the biggest blackout you have ever seen will happen sooner than you all think,” he said. “And now what? That’s the question that I have.”

Now that many progressives have moved on from trans rights to Gaza and from Gaza to defunding ICE, could Cuba be the next cause they fixate on? I think it’s possible given that a real economic collapse is likely any week now. Prepare for news outlets to reassign their reporters from Minneapolis to Havana and to have student protests effectively in support of the communist state. Some leftists are already working hard to make it happen. Here’s a new video posted by Medea Benjamin for Code Pink.

“What’s one word to describe the blockade?”

We asked people in Cuba this simple question and the answers say everything: cruel, criminal, inhumane, genocidal.

For more than 60 years, U.S. policy has tried to suffocate an entire country economically, restricting fuel, food,… pic.twitter.com/hTrgf8KMab

— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) February 11, 2026

Code Pink is also planning a flotilla to Cuba which, like the ones sent to Gaza, will do nothing for anyone except to provide more excuses for American newspapers to cover left-wing agitators. 

The Nuestra América Flotilla will sail toward Cuba, carrying humanitarian aid and representing a united front of organizations committed to peace, sovereignty, and cooperation across borders.

It really does look like Cuba is going to be the left’s new Gaza.

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