Cuba Says Biden Applies Blockade Even More Aggressively Than His Predecessors

Biden has maintained many of Trump’s sanctions against Cuba. He must fulfill his promise to reverse Trump’s actions.

By Marjorie Cohn

January 6, 2023

Z Article

Source: TruthOut

End the Embargo Against Cuba!


“The current U.S. government, the one of Joseph Biden, of all those that the Cuban Revolution has known, is the one that has most aggressively and effectively applied the economic blockade,” Carlos Fernández de Cossío, vice minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, declared in a speech on December 14. “It is the one that punishes the most, the one that causes the most damage to the daily life of Cubans and the economy as a whole.”

Fernández de Cossío cited the disruption of Cuba’s fuel receipt by sea, and economic depression resulting in the “extraordinary flow of Cuban migrants” as examples of the severe harms that Cubans have faced due to the Biden administration’s implementation of the blockade.

In his address at a conversation series on “Cuba in the Foreign Policy of the United States of America,” held on December 14 at the Higher Institute of International Relations in Havana, Fernández de Cossío took aim at the Biden administration’s enforcement of the blockade against Cuba, stating, “there can be no doubt that the economic blockade is the defining factor in the bilateral relations” between the United States and Cuba.

Biden pledged during his 2020 presidential campaign that he would “try to reverse the failed Trump policies that inflicted harm on Cubans and their families.” In 2021, he claimed, “We stand with the Cuban people.”

But Biden’s actions belie his words. Fernández de Cossío said that Biden has applied “with absolute and surprising loyalty … the policy of maximum economic pressure that was designed by his predecessor, Donald Trump.”

In 2015, the Obama administration restored full diplomatic relations with Cuba, released Cubans imprisoned in the U.S. for trying to deter further terrorist attacks against Cuba, relaxed restrictions on Americans traveling to Cuba, and ended some economic prohibitions between the U.S. and Cuba. It also facilitated the export of U.S. internet hardware and telecommunications and established increased cooperation between the United States and Cuba in intelligence-gathering, drug interdiction, scientific research and environmental protection.

Trump undid the progress Obama had made and imposed 243 onerous new sanctions — known as unilateral coercive measures in international law — on Cuba as part of his “maximum pressure” strategy.

The Embargo Was Imposed to Cause Cubans Hunger and Desperation

More than 60 years ago, following the triumph of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, the U.S. government imposed an economic embargo on Cuba. The rationale for the embargo was detailed in a State Department memo that advocated the “disenchantment and disaffection” of the Cuban people through “economic dissatisfaction and hardship” so they would overthrow the Fidel Castro government. The memo recommended the denial of “money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

The embargo (which the Cubans call a blockade) “is not a single law, but a complex patchwork of laws, presidential proclamations, and regulations that Fidel Castro once called ‘a tangled ball of yarn,’” American University professor and Cuba scholar William M. LeoGrande wrote in the National Security Archive. “It has evolved over the sixty years since President John F. Kennedy put it in place, loosening and tightening from one administration to the next, depending on the president’s preference for using hard power or soft power in dealing with Cuba.”

Since the Cuban Revolution, the United States “has waged an unceasing assault, both military and economic, against the Cuban people, organizing an invasion, assassinations, terrorist attacks against civilians and systematic economic sabotage,” Isaac Saney wrote at Resumen. The blockade has cost Cuba more than $130 billion in damage, according to the United Nations.

Some Positive Bilateral Steps Taken Last Year

Despite this rocky history, Fernández de Cossío acknowledged that some positive bilateral steps were taken between the United States and Cuba last year. He cited migration cooperation; U.S. grants of 20,000 visas annually; a return to U.S. embassy services in Havana; cooperation between Cuban Border Guard Troops and the U.S. Coast Guard for interception on the high seas and return to Cuba; an agreement to hold exchanges on law enforcement, oil spills, health and the environment; and commercial flights from the United States to different Cuban provinces. The United States has again authorized “people to people” educational group travel to Cuba, but individual travel for education is still prohibited.

Fernández de Cossío also praised U.S. offers of humanitarian aid to Cuba “without political conditions” after a fire at the supertanker base in Matanzas last August and $2 million for repairs after Hurricane Ian. But Cuba still has not received that assistance.
Negative Steps Taken by the Biden Administration

The vice minister of foreign affairs also listed “developments in the opposite direction.” These include the recent U.S. designation of Cuba as a country of special concern in matters of religious freedom “without any real basis, on grounds that are dishonest.”

“In late 2022, the Biden administration took the unprecedented action to list Cuba as a nation of ‘special concern’ regarding religious freedom — which even the Trump administration did not do, and which was not recommended by the related commission created by U.S. law. This is absurd,” Art Heitzer, co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild’s Cuba Subcommittee, told Truthout.

“Members of my Methodist church were prosecuted by the U.S. government for visiting their sister Methodist church’s centennial in Havana,” Heitzer said. “The late Cardinal Jaime Ortega, then head of Cuba’s Roman Catholic Church, told me after mass at the cathedral that he favored ending the U.S. embargo; and because of religious objections, the Cuban government delayed by several years the referendum process which has now granted constitutional protection to same-sex marriage.”

Fernández de Cossío also mentioned the Biden administration’s commitment in May to allow remittances to Cuba, but said that still has not happened and there is no “commitment to dismantle the measures announced by the Trump administration to disrupt the remittances.”

In addition, although the U.S. government announced measures to boost internet penetration and interconnection in Cuba, the United States still prohibits access for Cubans to more than 200 private commercial websites, according to Fernández de Cossío. This includes sites for education, health, science and technology, art, culture and innovation.

The U.S. government, Fernández de Cossío stated, admits that it “intends to promote the Cuban private sector, not to contribute to the development of the Cuban economy, not to improve the standard of living of the population, not to help a majority sector of the population, but rather identifies it as an instrument of political subversion … a political weapon.”

What Biden Could Do to Relax the Blockade

Fernández de Cossío described steps Biden could take “to deliver on his declared priority of promoting human rights and caring for the welfare of the Cuban people.”

Biden could remove Cuba from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. In 2015, the Obama-Biden administration removed Cuba from the list. But at the end of Trump’s term, his State Department added Cuba back onto the list. Within weeks, Fernández de Cossío noted, “45 banks and financial institutions with long-standing relations with Cuba severed their ties with our country.” This impacted Cuba’s trade and access to credit. “It is a devastating impact,” he said. “And even today, on account of its presence on that list, Cuba is still encountering trade and financial organizations that refuse to interact with us for fear of retaliation by the U.S. government.”

Dozens of lawyers have signed an open letter to Biden, stating, “There is no legal or moral justification for Cuba to remain on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list.” They wrote, “Biden has the power to remove Cuba from [the list] and reverse many Trump-era sanctions through executive action. However, Biden has chosen to defend Trump’s aggressive policies.”

Trump also stiffened the economic and travel blockade and activated Title III of the Helms Burton Act, which was enacted to discourage foreign investment in Cuba. Trump’s activation of Title III greenlighted thousands of lawsuits that will discourage tourism and investment in Cuba. In one such lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom issued an order on December 30 against four Florida-based cruise shipping companies that sailed to Cuba, requiring them to pay more than $400 million in damages. Fernández de Cossío pointed out that Biden could have suspended Title III like Trump’s predecessors. Activating Title III has had “a deterrent impact on our developmental purpose of attracting foreign capital,” he added.

In addition, “[The Biden] administration could have ceased the practice of pressuring governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to refuse medical cooperation provided by Cuba,” Fernández de Cossío said. “This U.S. action, of course, is intended to prevent dozens of thousands of people from receiving medical services, which is what Cuban doctors provide.”

Biden could also have ended “punitive measures, threats, and persecution against fuel exporting companies, shipping companies, port agencies, insurance and reinsurance agencies all aimed at depriving Cuba of fuel supplies that our country requires to function,” which “has had an extremely severe impact on the economy and the lives of the Cuban people,” according to Fernández de Cossío.

The Purpose of the Blockade Is Regime Change

The blockade, the vice minister said, “has an impact on everything.” That includes electrical service, transportation, the availability of medicine and material for medical services, and the ability to obtain supplies for food production and building materials.

“The U.S. government cannot pretend to treat Cuba as if it were part of its territory or treat Cuba as if it were a colonial dominion, or treat Cuba as if it were an adversary defeated in a war. We are none of the three,” Fernández de Cossío declared. He cited Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s observation that the intention of the United States is “to strangle the Cuban economy and thus try to provoke social collapse and a political crisis in Cuba.” Although the U.S. has failed in that purpose, it has led to “economic depression” in Cuba and “the extraordinary flow of Cuban migrants.”

Biden himself has called Cuba a “failed state,” and his administration “is doing virtually all that it can to make it so,” Heitzer said.

“The embargo’s overt purpose is to strangle the Cuban economy to promote regime change,” according to the Alliance for Cuba Engagement and Respect (ACERE), a coalition of organizations working to end the Cuba blockade. The United States spends more than $25 million each year to fund regime change programs against Cuba.

On November 3, for the 30th time, the United Nations General Assembly called for an end to the illegal U.S. blockade against Cuba. The vote was 185 in favor, two opposed (the U.S. and Israel), and two abstentions (Brazil and Ukraine). The resolution affirmed “the sovereign equality of States, non-intervention and non-interference in their internal affairs and freedom of international trade and navigation, which are also enshrined in many international legal instruments.”

Joe Biden must make good on his promise to reverse Trump’s actions tightening the blockade against Cuba, return to the measures taken by the Obama-Biden administration, and work to dismantle the illegal and immoral blockade once and for all.

Copyright Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

Related PostsThe Entire World, Yet Again, Is Demanding an End to the US Blockade of Cuba
Medea Benjamin -- November 04, 2022

Biden Should Remove Cuba from the Infamous State Sponsors of Terrorism List
Medea Benjamin -- July 28, 2022

Crisis in Cuba Requires End of US Blockade Now
Tom Whitney -- July 07, 2022

5+ million people march on May Day in Cuba, a country of 11 million
Evan Brannan -- May 03, 2022

Cuba’s Victory at the UN

W.T. Whitney -- November 08, 2022

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a member of the national advisory boards of Assange Defense and Veterans For Peace, and the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. A prominent scholar and lecturer, her books include Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law; and Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues She provides commentary for local, regional, national and international media and is co-host of “Law and Disorder” radio.

 

Aid flotilla arrives in Cuba as US oil blockade bites


By AFP
March 24, 2026


Activists chanted 'Cuba yes! Blockade no!' as the aid boat arrived in Havana - Copyright AFP YAMIL LAGE

Elisa Colella aboard the Maguro with Lisandra Cots in Havana and Gerard Martinez in Miami

The first boat of a flotilla carrying medical supplies, food and solar panels reached Cuba on Tuesday to aid the island as a US fuel blockade deepens its energy crisis.

The Maguro shrimp fishing boat docked in Havana three days later than hoped after battling strong winds, currents and a pesky battery during its journey from Mexico.

As they approached Havana’s colonial-era fortification, the international activists stood on the cabin roof of the boat — symbolically renamed “Granma 2.0” as a tribute to the yacht used by Fidel Castro’s guerrilla fighters to launch their revolution in 1956.

They held a sign reading “Let Cuba live” while others waiting for them on the dock chanted “Cuba yes! Blockade no!”

“I wish everyone would unite, even Cubans abroad, and come and do the same because it is the people who are suffering,” said Amado Rodriguez, a 59-year-old driver walking near Havana Bay.

The first shipments arrived by plane from Europe, Latin America and the United States last week as part of an air and sea mission, dubbed Our America Convoy, to bring some 50 tonnes of aid to Cuba.

Two more ships are due to arrive Tuesday or Wednesday.

Activists say the mission, which had the support of the government, aims to bring relief to Cubans amid a de facto US oil blockade that President Donald Trump launched in January.

Critics have slammed the effort as benefiting the communist government more than ordinary people.

Convoy organizer David Adler, a US citizen, told AFP the mission brought urgently needed aid directly to Cubans and showed the world “the human costs of Trump’s siege on Cuba.”

“It demonstrated that international solidarity can triumph over forced isolation,” said Adler, coordinator of global left-wing group Progressive International.

The country has suffered seven nationwide blackouts since 2024 — two of them this past week — due to aging thermoelectric plants and oil shortages.

The situation has deteriorated since Trump ordered a military operation to capture Cuba’s chief regional ally, Venezuelan socialist leader Nicolas Maduro, in January — depriving the island of its main oil supplier.

Trump subsequently threatened to slap tariffs on any country shipping oil to Cuba.



– Trump’s ‘greed’ –



The Maguro left from Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula Friday carrying 32 people, including activists from Australia, Brazil, Ecuador, Italy, Mexico and the United States, and AFP journalists.

As the boat motored across the sea, Brazilian activist Thiago Avila said other nations should come to Cuba’s aid.

“We cannot allow the world and international law to be buried under the greed of Donald Trump,” Avila told AFP.

“That’s why we are here, that’s why people decided to mobilize for this and decided to donate.”

Avila was among the organizers of a flotilla that had tried to bring aid to Gaza last year despite a naval blockade. That effort was intercepted by Israeli forces.

Fellow Brazilian activist Lisi Proenca said the group was applying the experience it gained from the Gaza flotilla to bring aid to Cuba.

“The interesting thing is that we’re able to carry much larger items, like solar panels,” she told AFP.



– ‘Political sideshow’ –



In addition to daily outages, fuel prices have soared, public transport has become rare and trash is piling up as garbage trucks are no longer running.

Cuba has blamed Washington for the country’s hardship, pointing to the fuel blockade and a decades-old trade embargo.

Cuban exiles and other critics, who say the communist government is to blame for the economic crisis, said the convoy is giving political support to Havana.

“All of this is nothing more than a political sideshow,” Luis Zuniga, a former Cuban political prisoner now based in Miami, told AFP.

“The electricity crisis in Cuba does not stem from the oil embargo imposed by (Trump). It dates back to long before that,” Zuniga said.

11,000 Children Among Tens of Thousands ‘Waiting for Surgery’ in Cuba Due to US Blockade

Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio said he hoped the people of the United States would ask, “Why does our government treat the whole population of Cuba this way?”


An ambulance passes in front of Calixto García Hospital in Havana on December 18, 2025.
(Photo by Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Mar 23, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

More than 96,000 Cubans, including 11,000 children, are “waiting for surgery” due to a fuel shortage caused by the American blockade, the country’s deputy foreign minister, Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, said on Sunday.

The numbers cited by the minister on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday were first reported earlier this month by Cuban Minister of Public Health José Ángel Portal Miranda, who explained that President Donald Trump’s policy of “energy asphyxiation,” using tariffs to threaten countries out of importing fuel to Cuba, has devastated its National Health Service.




International Convoys Deliver Aid to Cuba as Russian Tanker Moves to Defy US Oil Blockade



‘US Siege Is Warfare’: Cuba Faces Second Nationwide Blackout in Under a Week

The policy has left Cuba unable to import oil from abroad for more than three months, reducing its fuel supply by about 90% and leading to periodic blackouts and strict energy rationing.

Using the severely limited electricity at its disposal, Cuba’s health system has been forced to prioritize continuing cancer treatments and other lifesaving procedures, putting those awaiting non-urgent surgeries on the sidelines.

Last month, a specialist at a hospital in Holguín told Diario de Cuba that the surgeries canceled included “uncomplicated hernias, cataract surgeries, some non-urgent gynecological procedures, and scheduled orthopedic surgeries.”

Other healthcare professionals said that nobody was being admitted to the hospital for tests and that it was running low on basic supplies like syringes, IV tubing, and antibiotics, which could not be delivered due to fuel shortages. Most of those that have been used had to be donated by family members or purchased for exorbitant prices on the black market.

Jorge Barrera, a reporter for CBC News, spoke with patients and employees at Havana’s National Institute of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery this weekend and found it to be at about half capacity, and that nonessential care has been virtually all suspended.

“Even though the health system is a point of pride for Cuba... something that they export to the rest of the world,” Barrera explained, “because of this crisis, because of the impact it’s had on the skyrocketing prices, it’s just not enough for them to make ends meet. So people are quitting... to find other ways to make money to feed their families.”

Experts with the United Nations have condemned the blockade of Cuba as “a serious violation of international law.” Condemnations have grown louder over the past week as Trump said he believed he’d have “the honor of taking Cuba” after it collapsed.

De Cossio said he hoped the people of the United States would ask “Why does our government treat the whole population of Cuba this way?” and that they’d “understand that it’s not correct to treat another nation the way the US is doing simply to try to achieve political goals.”

The US blockade of Cuba is largely unpopular with the American public. A poll published last week by YouGov found that just 28% of adult US citizens said they approved of the US blocking oil shipments to the country, while 46% said they opposed it.

Asked by anchor Kristen Welker about suggestions from Trump that Cuba would collapse “on its own” without the need for the US to intervene militarily, De Cossio retorted, “What does ‘on its own’ mean when it’s being forced by the United States?”

Prior to Trump’s further measures to isolate Cuba in January, the US had placed Cuba under an economic embargo for more than 60 years, which severely hampered the country’s economic development and has cost Cuba trillions of dollars since it began, according to the UN.

“It’s a very bizarre statement, and it’s claimed by most US politicians repeatedly that Cuba will collapse on its own,” De Cossio said. “Then why does the US government need to employ so many resources, so much political capital, so many human resources to try to destroy the economy of another country? Evidently, it implies that the country does not have the characteristics to collapse on its own.”

Cuba is Trump’s Next Imperial Project

By Mel Gurtov

March 23, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Another Nonexistent Threat

Regime change in Cuba may be the next stop for the Trump war machine. Here’s what he told CNN in an interview March 6: 

“Cuba is gonna fall pretty soon . . . They want to make a deal, and so I’m going to put Marco ]Rubio] over there and we’ll see how that works out. We’re really focused on this one [Iran] right now. We’ve got plenty of time, but Cuba’s ready — after 50 years . . . I’ve been watching it for 50 years, and it’s fallen right into my lap because of me, it’s fallen, but it’s nevertheless fallen right into the lap. And we’re doing very well.” 

The justice department followed up by indicting several Cuban officials and entities for their alleged involvement in drug trafficking—a tactic now also being used to pursue another Trump critic, Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro.

The authority for Trump’s threats to Cuba are contained in an executive order on January 29, 2026. It states that “the policies, practices, and actions of the Government of Cuba constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security and foreign policy. The executive order E.O. declared a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act and invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, which empowers Trump to impose tariffs on foreign countries that “directly or indirectly” supply oil to the Cuban government.

To be clear, Cuba presents no national emergency, nor is there evidence that Cuba constitutes a threat of any kind to US national security—no more so than Iran or Venezuela. The real emergency in Cuba is humanitarian: the needless suffering inflicted on the Cuban people by the US energy blockade, which is preventing necessities such as food, medicine, and medical equipment from reaching them.

Naked Imperialism

In a January 11, 2026, social media post, shortly after US forces seized Venezuela’s leader, Nicolas Maduro, Trump asserted that there would be “NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA.” Trump is in the driver’s seat on Cuba: The threat to its oil suppliers of high tariffs, accompanied by a cut-off of Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba, has left Cuba’s economy without imported oil for three months. Cuba relies on those shipments for around 60 percent of its energy. 

Cuba’s president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, has little choice but to deal with Trump; he’s now in talks with the US. Diaz-Canel says he is insisting that the talks must take place with mutual respect for each other’s political systems, which is about the last thing Trump would agree to. He and Rubio want nothing less than a dismantling of Cuba’s political-economic system. Diaz-Canel seems willing to make economic changes, such as allowing exiles to invest in the island. His government has also released some political prisoners.

Rubio quickly made clear that Diaz-Canel’s proposals were insufficient. “Cuba has an economy that doesn’t work and a political and governmental system that can’t fix it,” Rubio said. “So they have to change dramatically. What they announced … is not dramatic enough. It’s not going to fix it. So they’ve got some big decisions to make over there.” 

What Rubio is really saying is that nothing short of regime change will satisfy the US. Trump has said just that; a week ago he demanded the resignation of Diaz-Canel.  

Bloomberg reports that “People familiar with the matter say Trump . . . wants to use American economic pressure to make the island nation financially dependent on Washington. The US would essentially take the place of its onetime rival, the Soviet Union.” Presumably, Trump will decide who should be president of Cuba. Marco Rubio would then become Cuba’s viceroy, dictating policies designed to keep Cuba firmly under US control.

On March 18 Trump told reporters: “we’ll be doing something with Cuba very soon.” A day earlier, the president floated the idea of “taking Cuba in some form,” after saying last month a “friendly takeover of Cuba” was possible. “Whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it,” he told reporters. Spoken like a true imperialist.

Resistance is Promised

US threats have led Diaz-Canel to say Cuba will resist any US attempt to take over the island. “In the face of the worst scenario, Cuba is accompanied by a certainty: any external aggressor will clash with an impregnable resistance,” Diaz-Canel said. 

But when it comes to the capacity to resist, Cuba is far more like Venezuela than like Iran. Gone are the days when Cubans rose up against an invasion. That was in 1961, when the new Kennedy administration suffered its first major foreign policy defeat. He expected Cubans to reject Fidel Castro’s revolution and welcome the overthrow of the government by Cuban exiles who had trained in Guatemala with the full knowledge of the preceding Eisenhower administration. 

Didn’t happen; the exiles’ invasion was easily defeated. Fidel welcomed the Russians instead, and a year later the US-USSR missile crisis resulted. Diaz-Canel isn’t Castro, and it is hard to see how a US show of force could be effectively resisted when the country is on the verge of economic collapse. 

And this time around, Trump has plenty of support in Congress for overthrowing Cuba’s legitimate rulers. Only the war with Iran, he says, affects the timeline for dealing with Cuba. Should Trump fail to achieve any of his objectives in Iran, as now seems likely, he may be more determined than ever to seek a “win” in Cuba.

Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University.

On 21 March, Hit the Streets for Cuba

Our message is clear: ¡Cuba sí, bloqueo no!

By Nuestra América Convoy

March 20, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Donald Trump is plotting a “takeover” of Cuba.

Washington’s lethal siege has already brought life on the island to a standstill. Millions have been plunged into darkness amidst rolling blackouts. Public transportation cannot operate without fuel. Shelves are empty of food.

In 1962, the US State Department designed the Cuban embargo to “bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” Today, the Trump administration’s collective punishment channels the sinister logic of its predecessors.

That is why we are preparing the Nuestra América Convoy to Cuba, mobilising by air, land, and sea in solidarity with the Cuban people.

On Saturday, the 21 March, as our Convoy arrives in Havana, we will celebrate an International Day of Solidarity with Cuba — and call on you to join us.

Wherever you may be in the world, we invite you to get involved with this global day of action, mobilising with your friends, colleagues, and comrades at your local US embassy to make your voice heard.

(Make your own call to action with our design templates here.)

Together, we will demand an end to Washington’s illegal siege and stand up for the cause of Cuban self-determination.

Join your local Cuba solidarity group. Organize an embassy demonstration. Protest Trump’s deadly blockade.

Over more than 60 years, Cuba’s revolutionary internationalism has helped to liberate millions from colonial rule, saved countless lives from the scourge of disease and taught entire generations to read and write.

This unwavering commitment to the cause of humanity has earned the island the eternal hostility of its northern neighbour. According to the UN, the 60-year US embargo has now cost Cuba at least $130 billion in damages.

The Trump administration’s latest escalation has already compromised entire intensive care units and emergency rooms.

On 21 March, join us to resist Washington’s efforts to recolonise the Western hemisphere by taking action outside your local US embassy.

Our message is clear: ¡Cuba sí, bloqueo no!

In solidarity,

The Nuestra América Convoy

Trump’s Cuba Memorandum Provokes Strong Criticism Amid New US Aggressiveness Abroad   

W. T. Whitney

 July 16, 2025

Facebook

TwitterRedditBlueskyEmail

Photograph Source: hakkun – CC BY-SA 3.0

The Trump administration on June 30 released its “National Security Presidential Memorandum 5” on U.S. plans for Cuba. Criticism from Cuba’s government and international commentators welled up, as if entirely new forms of anti-Cuba aggression were in the works. That may or may not be so.  Actually, the recent Memorandum was a re-issue of the document put forth by the first Trump administration on June 16, 2017. 

The eruption of an unusually forceful reaction to a Memorandum that says nothing new seems odd. It’s not. For one thing, the Memorandum creates an opening for U.S. government departments and agencies to fashion entirely new devices aimed at destroying Cuba’s economy. The 2017 Memorandum did exactly that, and what happened was disastrous.

And more: the international context of U.S. assaults on Cuba has drastically changed. U.S. foreign intervention now shows as war from the sky against Iran and as U.S. support and military hardware for genocide against Gazans. Is Cuba next in line for extreme measures?

Prescriptions

The Memorandum’s ostensible use is as a directive to heads of the various departments making up the U.S. government’s executive branch. It requires them to send President Trump reports on new tools they have devised for beating up on Cuba, and to do so within 30 days. They must “adjust the current Cuba regulations in order to ensure adherence, so that unauthorized transactions with Cuba and impermissible travel to Cuba are effectively banned.”

The document attests to the authority already vested in the departments to take action against Cuba. It cites the 1996 Helms-Burton Law as having legitimized the U.S. purpose of regime change for Cuba. 

The Memorandum sets forth various U.S. goals and various ways to implement them. These include promotion of free enterprise in Cuba, channeling funds to the Cuban people and not to their government, “restructuring certain travel arrangements and [US] travel,” and ending supposed human rights abuses in Cuba. This year’s Memorandum once more calls for depriving Cuba’s military and intelligence services of money derived from U.S. tourism. 

This Memorandum, as with the other one, bans U.S. tourism to the island. All U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba for permitted reasons must keep records of their transactions in Cuba and for five years ensure that they are available for potential Treasury Department inspection. 

The Memorandum directs U.S. officials to expand Cubans’ access to the Internet and to a “free press” and to oppose efforts at the United Nations and “other international forums” aimed at blocking U.S. policies on Cuba. Annually, the secretaries of the various departments of the executive branch must report to the president “regarding the engagement of the United States with Cuba to ensure that engagement is advancing the interests of the United States.” 

President Biden never disavowed Trump’s 2017 Memorandum. As a result, actions adverse to Cuba carried out under its authority remain in force.

Reaction

In discussion on July 2 with Randy Alonso Falcón, host of Cuban TV’s “Round Table” (Mesa Rotunda), Cuban Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío portrayed the recent Memorandum as a “political platform, a political document that is propagandistic, but also one that is a political declaration of U.S. intentions serving as a cover for actions it will take and others already in effect.” 

As examples of the latter, he cited both sanctions applied to ships of third countries bringing fuel to Cuba and denial of access to the U.S. Visa Waiver program to those otherwise eligible citizens of 40 named countries who have visited Cuba. Now, potential travelers to Cuba often choose not to visit Cuba so as to preserve their eligibility.  The intended result has been damage to Cuba’s tourism industry.

Cossio claimed that U.S. measures prompted by the recent Memorandum pose extra danger from “the hand of [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio … [and] of that clique that has made money and political careers out of hostility towards Cuba.” He laments harassment against individuals and businesses licensed to export goods to Cuba’s private sector, suggesting that the U.S. government seeks to harm Cuba’s private sector.  He worries that some Cuban-Americans visiting in Cuba may be barred from returning to the United States.  

The foreign ministry official pointed to a big change. Cubans have been “receiving privileged treatment on crossing the US border.” They are now vulnerable to “all [U.S.] anti-migrant actions including the alligator prison in Florida.”

International criticism of the recent Trump Memorandum erupted promptly and from many quarters, beginning in Cuba. Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel condemned the U.S. “purpose of inflicting the greatest possible damage and suffering.” National Assembly President Esteban Lazo, predicted their “vile purpose will fail in the face of Cubans’ unity and determination. “Cuba will defeat this new aggression,” pronounced Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz.

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) judged the Memorandum to be “aimed at forcefully hitting at all sectors of Cuban society.” Argentina’s International Committee for Peace, Justice, and Dignity for the Peoples declared its support for U.S. opponents of the Memorandum. Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (MST) on July 3 initiated an international fundraising campaign to send essential medicines to Cuba. 

Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum on July 2 denounced the Memorandum, while declaring that “Mexico is the country that for decades voted against the blockade of Cuba and that will always be our position.” Mao Ning, spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on July 2 stated that, “We exhort the USA to immediately raise the blockade and sanctions against Cuba, and eliminate the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.” 

The most explosive and revealing reaction came from Rosa Miriam Elizalde, editor of Cubadebate.cu. She was echoing Vice Minister Cossio’s observation that “Perhaps U.S. officials imbued with this euphoria over a new U.S. foreign policy of imposing peace through force are demanding something similar with Cuba.”

Writing for Mexico’s La Jornada news service on July 5, Elizalde points to “[D]éjà vu: More than 20 years after the United States invaded Iraq under false pretexts, we are witnessing the same warmongering operetta in South Florida … During the spring of 2003, while the missiles were falling on Baghdad, the ultra-sector of Cuban emigration took to the streets of Miami with a disturbing slogan: ‘Iraq now; Cuba later’”. 

She notes that, “[T]he Miami propaganda machine is once again waving the flag of armed intervention [in Cuba], while the U.S. and Israel are escalating their military offensive in Iran.” She highlights Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar’s remark that, “This is how tyrants are confronted, not only in Iran, but also satraps in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Peace through force. That’s the American way.” 

Elizalde regards as ominous that “Trump invokes as an American military success the sad memory of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.” She describes a volatile situation in which “[i]mmigrants are hunted down like beasts, just like communists and Jews before World War II.” 

She views the current political climate as recalling that of 2003, when the United States invaded Iraq: “The logic is the same: misinform, isolate, demonize, justify sanctions and, if conditions are right, authorize intervention in the “dark places of the planet.”

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a retired pediatrician and political journalist living in Maine