Cuba Hit with Fifth Blackout in Less Than a Year with 10m People in the Dark

That's what you said, but it is a just a coy semantic game by any real interpretation. The US took extra measures and went out of there way to strong arm any potential trade partners.

No sane or responsible nation would give up trade with the US and major parts of it's hemisphere of influence (Europe, Japan, Korea, etc) to access an island with nothing to offer in an inconvenient place.

The US, out of spite, demolished the Cuban economy and then spent decades beating the corpse for good measure long after the fight was over or justified.

Last I checked, they basically only got access to meaningful trade from Venezuela and China for a few decades, right?

Clinton relaxed it in 2000. Bush did nothing with it, Obama further relaxed it in 2014 and 2015, Trump reversed some of those relaxations in 2017, in 2021 Biden restored the state designation as a terrorist state.

During the height of the embargo, it absolutely was the case that the US applied maximum pressure and soft power in keeping countries from trading with Cuba. That was even part of the point of USAID "do what we tell you, or we'll stop these aid shipments" (not specifically for Cuba, but more broadly).

You know of companies personally trading there because the nature of the embargo has changed over the last 25 years. I'm old enough that I remember the pre 2000 relationship with Cuba. Admittedly, that probably makes me think the state is more harsh than it currently is. Old age does weird things to how you perceive things.