Cubans stage bike protest against U.S. embargo

Hundreds of Cubans demonstrated Thursday in front of the U.S. embassy, riding bicycles and electric vehicles while waving flags and signs demanding an end to the decades-old trade embargo.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel greeted the crowd before the “anti-imperialist youth parade” set out along Havana’s Malecon.

The protest comes as former U.S. President Donald Trump has stepped up pressure on Cuba’s communist government, imposing a de facto oil blockade since January and musing about "taking" the island. The Cuban government blames the embargo, in place since 1962, for the country’s economic hardships.

The demonstrators rode bicycles and electric cargo tricycles that have proliferated as an alternative mode of transportation amid fuel shortages.

"We have a lot to defend," Daniel Martinez, an 18-year-old student who cheered on the demonstrators near the US embassy, told AFP. "The more united we are, the better."

The oil blockade has deepened the country's energy crisis, with Cubans enduring regular blackouts along with fuel rationing, soaring gasoline prices and falling tourism.

"They are strangling us," said Ivan Beltran, 62, who rode his electric tricycle with a photo of the late Cuban revolution leader Fidel Castro on the windshield.

Trump gave Cuba a reprieve from the oil embargo this week as he allowed a Russian tanker to bring 730,000 barrels of crude to the island. Russia announced Thursday that it was preparing to send a second oil tanker to Cuba.