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.

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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.

 

Resisting Regime Change in Cuba

The Cuban people have vowed to resist a new U.S. invasion, writes Marjorie Cohn. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said the nation is a “free sovereign state” with the right to “self-determination,” and not “subject to the designs” of the U.S.

By Marjorie Cohn

May 20, 2026

Source: Consortium News

Motorist passing a mural in Havana in undated photo. “Abajo el bloque,” or “Down with the blockade.” (Desmond Boylan, CC-BY, Flickr)

Since the 1959 Cuban Revolution, the U.S. government has sought to foment regime change in Cuba.

In 1961, the C.I.A. orchestrated the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, when C.I.A.-trained Cuban exiles landed at Playa Girón, on Cuba’s southern coast. They were defeated within two days by Cuban military forces. 

Over the years, the C.I.A. organized hundreds of assassination attempts on the life of Cuban President Fidel Castro and supported myriad acts of terrorism against Cuba. 

Now, impelled by Cuban-American Secretary of State Marco Rubio, President Donald Trump is moving steadily toward accomplishing regime change in Cuba. 

Trump claims that Cuba will be “next” after Iran. He said he will “have the honor of taking Cuba,” and “Whether I free it, take it – think I could do anything I want with it.” On May 1, the day he issued an executive order intensifying sanctions against Cuba, Trump said the U.S. will be “taking over” Cuba “almost immediately.”

The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida is reportedly preparing to announce the indictment of former Cuban President Raúl Castro on May 20. 

This mirrors the pretext the U.S. used for its illegal invasion of Venezuela in January and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom the U.S. had also indicted.

In recent weeks, U.S. military and intelligence agencies have stepped up surveillance flights near and around Cuba. This is also a pattern that mirrors U.S. intelligence flights in the weeks before the January aggression against Venezuela and seizure of Maduro.

Meanwhile, Washington is manufacturing another pretext to attack Cuba. Officials in Cuba said the Trump administration is leveling “increasingly implausible accusations” as it tries to justify, “without any excuse, a military attack against Cuba.” The Cuban statement responded to a report in Axios that quotes an unnamed White House official as saying that the Cuban government has been “discussing plans” to launch drones against the United States.

Trump Toughens the Blockade Against Cuba

The U.S. policy of ousting the Cuban government was enshrined in a 1960 secret State Department memorandum that advocated

“a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

In response to that memo, the U.S. government imposed an illegal embargo — now a punishing blockade — on Cuba. It continues to this day. 

Damages caused by the blockade exceed $170 billion, according to the Cuban Foreign Ministry. In 2025 alone, the blockade cost Cuba $7.5 billion.

Trump has taken several steps to toughen the blockade of Cuba. During his first term, he reversed some measures President Barack Obama had instituted to weaken the blockade. Trump also imposed 243 onerous new sanctions as part of his “maximum pressure” strategy against Cuba.

Now Trump is using his second term to hasten the downfall of Cuba’s government with actions that elevate U.S. cruelty toward Cuba to an unprecedented level.

The infant mortality rate in Cuba rose from 4.0 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2018, to 9.9 in 2025. An estimated 1,800 Cuban infants died. They would have survived were it not for the U.S.’s intensified sanctions.

On Jan. 29, Trump issued an executive order tightening the U.S. noose around Cuba’s neck. Trump’s order declared Cuba to be “an unusual and extraordinary threat,” without citing any evidence, and warned that he would impose punitive tariffs on states that deliver fuel to Cuba, which relies on oil for 80 percent of its electricity.

Then the Trump administration established a naval blockade of Cuba — considered an act of war.

Cuba depended on Venezuela and Mexico to supply the oil it could not produce. Cuba has received no oil from Venezuela since the U.S. invasion and kidnapping. Oil from Mexico likewise stopped in response to Trump’s threats.

Although the Trump administration allowed a Russian delivery of 100,000 tons of oil last month, that supply has been exhausted.

On May 13, Cuba announced it had run out of oil. 

The U.N. Human Rights Office warned in February that “Intensive care units and emergency rooms are compromised, as are the production, delivery, and storage of vaccines, blood products, and other temperature-sensitive medications.”

That statement continued,

 “In Cuba, more than 80 percent of water pumping equipment depends on electricity, and power cuts are undermining access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene. The fuel shortage has disrupted the rationing system and the regulated basic food basket, and has affected social protection networks — school feeding, maternity homes, and nursing homes — with the most vulnerable groups being disproportionately impacted.”

In May, the U.N. special rapporteurs on the right to development, the right to food, and the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation said that the U.S. fuel blockade on Cuba amounts to “energy starvation” with grave consequences for human rights and overall development.

On May 1, Trump issued another executive order, reinforcing and expanding the existing framework of illegal unilateral coercive measures (UCM’s) imposed against Cuba. 

The order significantly strengthened the extraterritorial application of the UCM’s to foreign entities, individuals, and financial institutions engaged in trade or economic relations with the country. And the order further tightened restrictions on international financial transactions, trade, travel, and access to banking and payment systems. 

Impending Indictment of Raúl Castro

Since 1959, right-wing anti-Cuba organizations based in Miami have conducted a pattern of terrorism against Cuba in attempts to overthrow the Cuban government. 

Those terrorist groups include Brothers to the Rescue, Alpha 66, Commandos F4, Cuban American National Foundation and Independent and Democratic Cuba. They have operated with impunity in the United States — with the knowledge and support of the F.B.I. and C.I.A.

Their acts of terrorism include planting a bomb on a Cubana airliner off the coast of Barbados in 1976, killing all 73 persons aboard. Although the C.I.A. knew that Cuban exiles were planning to blow up a Cubana airplane, it didn’t warn Cuba. 

The Trump administration is reportedly preparing to indict Raúl Castro for allegedly ordering the 1996 downing of two small planes flown by Brothers to the Rescue (BTTR) that killed four people. Castro was then minister of Cuba’s armed forces.

In 1995, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said it was investigating BTTR (which had engaged in a campaign of dropping anti-government leaflets over Cuba) for violating Cuban airspace.

Pilot José Basulto, a former C.I.A. operative and veteran of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, founded BTTR. During the 1990s, BTTR was part of a network that executed bombings against Cuban tourism targets, assassination plots and paramilitary operations against Cuba.

Cuba had warned Basulto not to cross the 24th parallel, a line approximately 40 to 60 miles north of Cuba’s coast. Although it is part of international waters and airspace, Cuba considers the area that stretches to the line to be its defense zone. Cuban airspace extends 12 miles off its coast.

On Feb. 26, 1996, Basulto informed Havana’s air traffic control that he would cross the 24th parallel and fly north of Havana. Cuban air traffic control responded, “We inform you that the area north of Havana is activated. You are taking a risk by flying south of 24.”

Basulto replied, “We know that we are in danger each time we fly into the area south of 24, but we are ready to do so as free Cubans.”

“According to the Cuban pilots and air command, two of the pirate planes were at a distance of from five to eight miles from Cuba’s coasts,” Roberto Robaina González, then foreign minister of Cuba, said in a statement to the United Nations General Assembly.

The BTTR planes were shot down by Cuban MiG fighter jets. Four people, not including Basulto, were killed.

“[BTTR] had carried out premeditated acts, which were not civil in nature and which violated both international law and Cuba’s sovereignty,” former Cuban Foreign Minister Ricardo Alarcón told the U.N. shortly after the shootdowns. “They were also related to very serious crimes against the Cuban people.”

The Cuban Five

In the face of the anti-Cuba terrorism, five men — known as the Cuban Five — traveled to Miami from Cuba to gather intelligence to prevent future terrorist acts against Cuba. They peacefully infiltrated criminal exile groups, then turned over the results of their investigation to the F.B.I. But instead of working with Cuba to stop the terrorism against it, the U.S. government arrested the five men.

The Cuban Five — Gerardo Hernández, Fernando González, René González, Ramon Labañino, and Antonio Guerrero — were convicted in 2001 of criminal charges, including conspiracy to commit espionage and conspiracy to commit murder, in a trial in U.S. district court in Miami. They were sentenced to four life terms and 75 years, collectively.

Hernández was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the 1996 shootdown of the BTTR aircraft. 

In 2005, a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals unanimously reversed the convictions of the Cuban Five. But the convictions were reinstated by a decision of all the 11th Circuit judges.

Judge Phyllis Kravitch wrote in dissent that the government failed to present evidence sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hernández agreed to participate in a conspiracy to shoot down planes over international airspace, resulting in the deaths of four members of Brothers to the Rescue.

The five men were subsequently released in 2011 and 2014. 

In 2015, as Barack Obama was moving toward normalizing relations between the U.S. and Cuba, I visited Cuba and met with René González and Antonio Guerrero. 

“We were occupied by U.S. troops in 1898. From then on, we were a subject of the U.S. government and especially the U.S. corporations. Then came the Revolution, which tried to correct that imbalance,” González told me. “Then came a different stage — of aggressions, blockade and policies against Cuba, which has lasted for more than 56 years. You cannot expect that establishing normal relations … [for] the first time in history is going to be an easy process.”

Normalization, González continued, will require

“the dismantling of the whole system of aggression against Cuba, especially the blockade. Everybody knows how damaging it has been for the Cuban people. It’s a small island. For 50 years, it has been asphyxiated by the biggest power in the world. It had a cost on the Cuban people, on their economy.”

“Since 1959, Washington has pursued a singular, near-fanatical obsession with reversing the Cuban Revolution and restoring the neocolonial shackles it once imposed on the island,” Eric Ross wrote in a piece republished yesterday by Consortium News. “Its aim has been not only to undermine Cuba’s social transformation and internationalist commitments, but to extinguish the example the revolution represented: that an alternative to U.S. hegemony and capitalist underdevelopment was possible.”

The Cuban people have vowed to resist a new U.S. invasion. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said Cuba is a “free sovereign state” with the right to “self-determination,” and it is not “subject to the designs of the United States.”

On Monday, Diaz-Canel said that

“Cuba, which is already suffering from multidimensional aggression by the U.S., does have the absolute and legitimate right to defend itself against a military offensive, which cannot logically or honestly be used as an excuse to impose a war against the noble Cuban people.”

“Cuba does not represent a threat and has no aggressive plans or intentions against any country. It does not have them against the U.S., nor has it ever had them, something that nation’s government knows well, especially its defense and national security agencies,” Diaz-Canel added.

He warned that a U.S. military attack on Cuba would have devastating consequences for the U.S., Cuba, and the region. “If it materializes, it will trigger bloodshed with incalculable consequences, in addition to the destructive impact on regional peace and stability,” he said.

“There’s nothing they can effectively do to resist a U.S. invasion or attack at the moment it happens,” Cuba expert William LeoGrande, professor at American University, told The Wall Street Journal. But the Cuban government plans to mount a guerrilla war if the U.S. occupies Cuba. “It does not take a lot of people to make an occupation really hard.”

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This article was originally published by Consortium News; please consider supporting the original publication, and read the original version at the link above.Email

Marjorie Cohn

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, dean of the People's Academy of International Law, and former president of the National Lawyers Guild. She is a member of the national advisory boards of Veterans For Peace and Assange Defense, and is a member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the U.S. representative to the continental advisory council of the Association of American Jurists. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues.

 

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