A girl 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 Photos
An annual cigar pageant in Cuba’s capital metropolis of Havana, which had been as a result of happen over 5 days in late February, has been suspended till additional discover as a result of a worsening financial disaster.
The postponement comes because the island nation’s communist-run authorities endures its greatest check for the reason that collapse of the Soviet Union.
Habanos S.A., the cigar honest’s organizer, stated on Saturday that it had suspended the pageant “with the goal of preserving the very best requirements of high quality, excellence and expertise that characterize this worldwide occasion.”
The organizing committee stated it was engaged on setting a brand new date for the honest, with out offering additional particulars.
The pageant has beforehand welcomed greater than 1,000 company from round 80 nations, with attendees taking part in auctions and touring tobacco plantations.
Premium Cuban cigars are globally famend and regarded of excessive financial significance, serving as one of many island’s principal exports and a significant supply of overseas foreign money. They’re unlawful within the U.S., nevertheless, as a result of a decades-old commerce embargo.
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% improve 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 Photos
Cuba is at the moment grappling with a extreme gas scarcity amid a U.S. oil blockade.
The Trump administration has successfully reduce Cuba off from Venezuelan oil since launching a army 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 risk” 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 concerning the humanitarian state of affairs in Cuba, which is able to worsen, and if not collapse, if its oil wants go unmet,” stated UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric.
