HAVANA: Cuba detailed a wide-ranging plan on Friday to protect essential services and ration fuel as the communist-run government dug in its heels in defiance of a US effort to cut off oil supply to the Caribbean island. The rationing measures are the first to be announced since President Donald Trump threatened to slap tariffs on the US-bound products of any country exporting fuel to Cuba and suggested hard times ahead for Cubans already suffering severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine.

Warning comes as US threatens tariffs on any country that supplies oil to the Caribbean island.

The shortage has led to blackouts across the Caribbean nation.