The Trump administration has been accused of contributing to a worsening economic crisis in Cuba that has forced the government to ration basic products such as rice, eggs, beans and soap.

Commerce Minister Betsy Diaz Velazquez told the state-run Cuban News Agency that various forms of rationing would be employed in order to deal with shortages of staple foods.

She blamed the hardening of the United States’ trade embargo by the Trump administration.

The US trade embargo is a series of trade and travel restrictions imposed on Cuba since 1962 in response to the Cuban revolution.

It remains the longest enduring trade embargo in modern history and is intended to force the communist country into economic and diplomatic isolation.

US President Donald Trump has taken a tough stance on Cuba since he was elected in 2016, criticising the country for its poor human rights record and ties to embattled socialist regimes in Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Among President Trump’s most significant crackdowns are bans on commerce with businesses owned by the Cuban military and security services, and a ban on individual travel to Cuba.

The Cuban government estimates that US trade restrictions have cost the country more than $125 billion since the start of the embargo more than five decades ago.

Limited rationing of certain products has already begun in many parts of the country, with stores limiting the number of items such as cans of beans that a single shopper can buy.

Ms Diaz said chicken would now be sold in limited quantities, with cheaper chicken limited to 5kg per purchase and the more expensive variety capped at two packages per purchase.

Cheap soap, rice, beans, peas and eggs will now only be sold in limited quantities per person and controlled through the national system of ration books.

“We’re calling for calm,” Ms Diaz said, adding that Cubans should feel reassured that at least cooking oil would be in ample supply.

“It’s not a product that will be absent from the market in any way.”

Economists, meanwhile, say that another equally plausible reason for the rations in Cuba is a plunge in aid from oil-rich Venezuela, where the collapse of its state-run oil company has led to nearly two-thirds cut in shipments of subsidised fuel that Cuba used for power and to earn hard currency on the open market.

Venezuela is battling a deepening political crisis made worse by hyperinflation, food shortages and lengthy blackouts.

Cuba imports about two-thirds of its food at an annual cost of more than $US2 billion, and brief shortages of individual products have been common for years.

In recent months, a growing number of products have started to go missing for days or weeks at a time, and long lines have sprung up within minutes of the appearance of scarce products like chicken or flour.

Many shoppers find themselves still standing in line at the supermarket when the products run out, a problem the government has been blaming on “hoarders”.

-with AAP