A lady smokes a cigar throughout a humidor public sale held as a part of the closing ceremony of the XXV Habanos Pageant in Havana, on February 28, 2025.
Yamil Lage | Afp | Getty Photographs
An annual cigar competition in Cuba’s capital metropolis of Havana, which had been attributable to happen over 5 days in late February, has been suspended till additional discover attributable to a worsening financial disaster.
The postponement comes because the island nation’s communist-run authorities endures its largest take a look at because the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Habanos S.A., the cigar honest’s organizer, mentioned on Saturday that it had suspended the competition “with the goal of preserving the best requirements of high quality, excellence and expertise that characterize this worldwide occasion.”
The organizing committee mentioned it was engaged on setting a brand new date for the honest, with out offering additional particulars.
The competition has beforehand welcomed greater than 1,000 friends from round 80 international locations, with attendees taking part in auctions and touring tobacco plantations.
Final yr, Habanos. S.A., a state-run entity that holds a monopoly on world gross sales of Cuban cigars, reported file gross sales of $827 million in 2024, reflecting a 16% enhance in comparison with the yr prior.
A person stares at black smoke billowing from a hearth on the Nico Lopes oil refinery in Havana on February 13, 2026.
Yamil Lage | Afp | Getty Photographs
Cuba is presently grappling with a extreme gas scarcity amid a U.S. oil blockade.
The Trump administration has successfully lower Cuba off from Venezuelan oil since launching a navy operation to grab Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3.
U.S. President Donald Trump has since known as its authorities “an uncommon and extraordinary menace” and pledged to impose tariffs on any nation that provides it with oil.
Cuba’s authorities, which has condemned U.S. stress, has just lately adopted measures to guard important companies and ration gas provides for key sectors.
Cuba’s dwindling oil provides prompted the United Nations to warn of a attainable humanitarian “collapse” earlier within the month.
“The Secretary-Common is extraordinarily involved in regards to the humanitarian state of affairs in Cuba, which can worsen, and if not collapse, if its oil wants go unmet,” mentioned UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric.
