A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that U.S. sanctions imposed on Cuba at the start of the first Trump administration were “likely the primary cause” for the increase in the infant mortality rate on the island.
From 2018 to 2025, the infant mortality rate — which measures the number of deaths of infants under 1 year of age per 1,000 live births — in Cuba surged by 148%, the report found. The timeline for that increase has coincided with harsher economic sanctions implemented by Presidents Trump and Biden.
“US sanctions have targeted Cuba’s key sources of export earnings, such as tourism, remittances from Cuban Americans to their family members, and even by putting pressure on other countries to end primary care programs staffed by Cuban doctors,” CEPR International Research fellow Joe Sammut said in a press release. “These measures sharply reduced Cuba’s capacity to pay for needed food and medicines.”
Despite decades of economic instability and having the title of “developing” country, Cuba has historically had a lower infant mortality rate than the U.S. From 2014 to 2016, Cuba had an infant mortality rate that hovered around 5 per 1,000 live births, lower than the U.S. rate of closer to 6 per 1,000 live births, World Bank and United Nations data showed. The gap in the rates likely stemmed from the fact that the island country has free, universal healthcare, the New York Times reported in 2019.
By the end of 2025, the infant mortality rate in Cuba was 9.9 per 1,000 live births. The report estimated that if the rate had remained at its 2018 level, 1,800 infant deaths would have been avoided.
The U.S. sanctions have largely led to a ravaging of the Cuban economy, which has had a negative trickle-down effect on the health of the people.
From 2018 to 2024, tourism to Cuba decreased by more than 50% and income from tourism fell by over 60%, according to the Cuban National Office of Statistics and Information. In 2017 and 2019, the Trump administration severely restricted the flow of tourism to the island with the Cuba Restricted List, an ever-expanding register of Cuban businesses — largely tourism-based institutions such as hotels — that Americans were prohibited from doing business with. That list was further expanded in 2025 at the advent of the second Trump administration. The U.S. also banned all cruise ships from going to Cuba beginning in 2019.
The U.S. further disincentivized businesses and financial institutions from operating in Cuba when it deemed the Caribbean country a state sponsor of terrorism in 2021, a distinction Cuba shares with North Korea, Iran and Syria.
Changes in import legislation imposed by the U.S. have led to a lack of access tomedical tools and medications in Cuba. Because of this, over 50% of medications on the island are in short supply.
Restrictions on remittances have also limited the amount of aid that Cubans can receive from family members and charitable organizations from abroad. This lack of funds, in turn, leaves families without the ability to purchase necessities.
The report’s findings don’t fully take into account the effects of the last few months of U.S. sanctions against Cuba, but its authors pointed out that those new escalations will probably exacerbate the situation on the island.
“The Trump policy of ‘maximum pressure’ on Cuba has killed a lot of babies — and, although we don’t yet have data for the last few months, it’s highly likely that more babies are dying now, and at an even higher rate than last year as a result of the current US fuel blockade targeting Cuba,” CEPR Director of International Policy Alexander Main said in a press release. “The question is how many more babies will have to die before the current economic siege against Cuba is lifted.”
The Trump administration has cut off all oil shipments to Cuba from Venezuela over the last three months. After the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the U.S. took control of the South American country’s oil reserves. Trump has also threatened to impose tariffs on countries that send oil to Cuba.
Adding to that, the nation has been plagued by power outages over the last two years, which have been caused by mechanical failures, damage from severe storms and fuel shortages.
“The oil blockade has plunged the island into its worst energy crisis in modern history,” Times reporter Kate Linthicum wrote in March. “The country’s already cratering economy now teeters on the verge of collapse, with vehicles idled by a lack of gas, hospitals forced to cancel surgeries and millions living without a steady supply of electricity and water.”
The United Nations Security Council has repeatedly called on the U.S. to repeal its sanctions against Cuba, with human rights experts calling the restrictions a “violation of international law.”
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