WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The US on Wednesday renewed an offer of $100 million in aid for Cuba, pressuring its longtime nemesis to cooperate as it weathers an economic crisis that includes prolonged blackouts.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking last week in Rome, said that Cuba had rejected an offer of $100 million in assistance, an assertion denied by the communist government in Havana.

The State Department on Wednesday publicly renewed the proposal, which comes after the US piled new sanctions against key parts of Cuba’s state-controlled economy.

“The regime refuses to allow the US to provide this assistance to the Cuban people, who are in desperate need of assistance due to the failures of Cuba’s corrupt regime,” the State Department said.

“The decision rests with the Cuban regime to accept our offer of assistance or deny critical (life)-saving aid and ultimately be accountable to the Cuban people for standing in the way of critical assistance,” it said.

It said that the support would include direct humanitarian assistance from the US and funding for “fast and free” internet access — which presumably would benefit dissidents in the one-party state that restricts media.

The US, the statement said, was working to promote “meaningful reforms” in Cuba.

Energy woes

Cuba’s power supplies have been dropping to new lows, according to data compiled by Agence France-Presse, with prolonged blackouts and record generation shortfalls in recent days.

Sixty-five percent of Cuban territory endured simultaneous blackouts on Tuesday, according to the data.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Wednesday acknowledged the “particularly tense” situation but pinned blame squarely on the US.

“This dramatic worsening has a single cause: the genocidal energy blockade to which the United States subjects our country, threatening irrational tariffs against any nation that supplies us with fuel,” he wrote on X.

Cuba’s economic woes intensified in January after the US deposed Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolas Maduro, whose government had been providing around half of the island’s fuel needs.