Food aid stalls in Cuba amid fuel shortages tied to U.S. oil restrictions, report says

A new report says U.S. oil restrictions affecting Cuba have paralyzed the distribution of tons of food across the island.

The Spanish news agency EFE reports that roughly 20,000 tons of food from the United Nations World Food Programme are stuck or moving slowly because of severe fuel shortages.

The U.S. restrictions are part of the Trump administration's broader pressure campaign aimed at forcing political and economic changes in Cuba.

But during a forum at Miami's Museum of the Cuban Diaspora, local leaders and members of the Cuban exile community argued that Cuba's government — not U.S. sanctions — remains the primary driver of the island's ongoing humanitarian and economic crisis.

"We must, in fact, push for a new structure of government that will ensure democracy and freedom for the Cuban people," Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said during the event. 

Among the participants was James Cason, who served as chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana during the early 2000s.

The forum focused on efforts to revive Cuba's 1940 constitution as a potential blueprint for a future democratic government on the island. "Now the question is they need to get the Constitution of 1940 to the attention of the public in Cuba," Cason said.

"The Cuban regime says that history only started in 1959, so they don't know there's a Constitution of 1940," he added.