Trump’s First 100 Days See Unprecedented Attacks Against Cuba
By the Cuba Solidarity Campaign
Cuba knew it would be in for a gruelling four years when Trump was elected for a second term, but the speed with which his new administration has escalated US economic warfare against the island is unprecedented.
In his first term, just as he was leaving office, Trump designated Cuba a ‘State Sponsor of Terrorism’ (SSOT). Inclusion on the SSOT list deprives Cuba of trade, investment and access to international banking mechanisms, warning off much-needed potential investors and fuelling an economic and migration crisis. The Biden administration can receive no praise for their short-lived removal of Cuba from the list. Despite his election promise to undo the 243 extra punitive measures imposed by Trump, Biden sat on his hands as Cubans suffered COVID-19 and the worst shortages in recent history, waiting until six days before he stood down to reverse the SSOT designation. Trump returned Cuba to the list within hours of his inauguration.
On the same day the White House restored the “Restricted Entities List,” which makes hundreds of Cuban entities effectively off-limits for US companies or individuals to have dealings with. The original list was introduced under the first Trump administration and also bars visiting US tour groups, individuals or officials from staying at more than 100 Cuban hotels.
In a Facebook post, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel called the moves “an act of arrogance and disregard for truth” and said “the legitimate and noble cause of our people will prevail and we will once again succeed.”
Foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla was also defiant. “It will cause harm, but it won’t subdue the firm determination of our people,” he said on X.
An end to remittances?
On 31 January the Cuban company Orbit SA was also named a “restricted entity.” Orbit is responsible for processing remittances (money sent home to their families by Cubans living abroad) most of which are sent through Western Union. On 8 February Western Union suspended transfers to Cuba “due to a change in US sanctions regulations.” Unless they can find another unrestricted Cuban entity to work with, remittances, which are a lifeline for many Cuban families during the current economic crisis, will end indefinitely.
In February, Trump revoked Biden’s suspension of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, the part which enables international companies to be sued if they do business with properties nationalised during the Cuban Revolution. This controversial part of the Act, which was signed into law by President Clinton in 1996, had been waived by every president for 23 years, following pressure from world governments – until Trump.
As a result, since 2019, around 45 lawsuits have been filed, mainly against US companies – another extraterritorial threat to deter investors from working with Cuba.
Cuba has always declared its willingness to find a solution for any compensation claims for nationalised properties. Indeed, it signed and honoured agreements after the Revolution with many countries including Spain, Switzerland, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and France. However, the US government refused to enter into negotiations at the time.
Cuba responded with a statement from the Foreign Ministry which called on “the international community to stop, denounce, and support our people in the face of this new and dangerous onslaught of aggression that has only just begun.
“They will do much harm with their murderous and cowardly plans and measures, but they will never achieve their main objective of bringing Cuba to its knees and subduing it.”
New threats from hardliners
State Department officials have made it clear that the aggression is only just beginning. Shortly after his appointment, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the administration would be “restoring a tough US-Cuba policy.” With Venezuela and Nicaragua also in his sights, he accused the three countries of being “enemies of humanity,” due to the number of migrants to the US, missing the irony that it is US economic sanctions against all three that is driving the crisis.
Mauricio Claver-Carone, another pro-blockade hardliner, who took credit for the ʻmaximum pressure’ policy against Cuba from 2017-21, is now Special Envoy for Latin America. In February he told a Politico reporter that regime change in Cuba was “imminent” and that the US can be “very creative” in bringing it about.
In Congress, Republican Senator Rick Scott announced that he didn’t think the US “should have any travel to Cuba,” and that he would be pushing for travel restrictions “by the end of the year.”
Medical missions under attack
In February the US launched a direct attack on Cuba’s international medical missions. Rubio announced diplomats, officials, and any individual and their family members would face visa restrictions and other sanctions if they had any association with the humanitarian programmes. Since being introduced after the Revolution, Cuba’s international medical brigades have treated millions of people in the global south and are deemed vital for the healthcare infrastructure of many countries, especially some of Cuba’s closest neighbours in the Caribbean.
Rubio accused the medical missions of depriving “ordinary Cubans of the medical care they desperately need in their home country,” when in reality it is the US blockade that is blocking Cuba’s ability to buy the life-saving medicines and surgical supplies its people desperately need. For years the US government has attempted to undermine the medical programmes, providing USAID funding to try and expose them as “forced labour.” However this propaganda as been challenged both by Cuban officials and the doctors themselves, and by international observers, who argue that the missions are voluntary and provide critical services to the communities in need.
An editorial in the Jamaica Gleaner damned the plan as “nothing short of callous, cruel and vindictive.” It would “be felt not only by Cuba, but by poor people in Africa, Asia and the Americas, including several Caribbean countries, Jamaica among them.”
The leaders of CARICOM countries were quick and vehement in their condemnation of this measure, which would sanction them for using Cuban doctors and nurses in their health systems.
“Does anyone expect that, because I want to keep my (US) visa, Iʼm going to let 60 poor, working-class people die? That will never happen,” said Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, where Cuban doctors working at the country’s Medical and Diagnostic Centre save dozens of lives every day.
Joseph Andall, Grenada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, commented: “We not only have a legal obligation, but also a moral and ethical obligation to support the Cuban people; our health infrastructure will collapse without Cuba’s generous intervention, so we must always adopt a principled stance.”
Rubio travelled to the Caribbean in March and received further pushback during a public press conference with the Jamaican Prime Minister. In response to the claim that Cuban medical brigades were unpaid forced labour, Andrew Holness told the US Secretary of State that his government planned to keep using Cuban doctors and nurses in their hospitals under a programme which operated according to international labour standards.
“In terms of Cuban doctors in Jamaica, let us be clear, the Cuban doctors in Jamaica have been incredibly helpful to us” he said.
“Jamaica has a deficit in health personnel primarily because many of our health personnel have migrated to other countries. We are, however, very careful not to exploit the Cuban doctors who are here,” Holness continued.
With a slew of pro-blockade hardliners appointed to ambassadorial and White House posts, and a new Senate bill which seeks to impose even harsher sanctions on foreigners who “engage” with Cuba, all levels of the US government and the legislature are focused on strangling the Cuban economy and subjugating its revolutionary people.
In its first 100 days the Trump administration has moved with unprecedented speed and aggression, with more attacks to come. The solidarity movement must step up to this challenge, and prepare for a four-year fight alongside the Cuban people in defence of their sovereignty and Revolution.
- You can follow the Cuba Solidarity Campaign (CSC) on Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram.
- This article was originally published by the CSC on 17 April 2025
May Day in Cuba – A Reaffirmation of the Revolution
By Bernard Regan, Secretary, Cuba Solidarity Campaign.
May Day in Cuba is a national holiday marked by huge demonstrations across the country and this year will be no exception. Over one million Cubans will demonstrate in Havana in the Plaza de la Revolucion led by the trade union movement.
The event will be a positive reaffirmation of the values of the revolution and an expression of Cuba’s determination to resist the pressures of the blockade imposed on the island by successive United States administrations and most recently of course by President Donald Trump.
The blockade is imposed on Cuba despite the United Nations General Assembly voting 32 times consecutively to call for its complete removal. From 1st March 2023 to February 2024 the blockade caused material damages estimated at $5,056,800,000. Just 15 minutes without the blockade would enable Cuba to provide hearing aids for all the children who needed them; 30 minutes blockadeless and all the electrical and conventional wheelchairs needed could be provided. The list goes on and on. It is a totally unjustifiable persecution of the Cuban people.
In November 2024 the most recent vote recorded 187 countries against the blockade and only two (USA and Israel) voting for its continuance whilst one nation (Moldova) abstained. Despite this overwhelming vote Trump continues these vindictive policies. Far from having any negative impact on the world Cuba has displayed an exemplary record of sending medical support to countries across the globe in need of practical solidarity.
Since 1960, over 600,000 medical professionals have gone to over 160 countries to provide their expertise. In 2020 it was estimated that there were 30,000 Cuban doctors in 67 countries. Britain’s population is over 6 times that of Cuba. Just imagine if Britain had acted with such a selfless sense of solidarity for people across the globe, how many more millions of lives could have been saved and sick and injured treated.
Over the whole period of Cuba’s existence, it has not been possible to put a cigarette paper between the policies of Democrats or Republicans. Occasionally there have been changes of tack – as when President Obama established diplomatic relations with Cuba but did not remove the most vicious of the legislation that was imposed on the island.
Trump has never made a secret of his animosity towards Cuba or indeed for that matter towards any nation that asserts its sovereignty. In 2018 speaking at the United Nations General Assembly he said, “It has been the formal policy of our country since President Monroe (1823) that we reject the interference of foreign nations in this (western) hemisphere and in our own affairs.” It was a clear declaration of intent that he wished to make the Latin American economies subservient to Wall Street’s interests.
On taking office on 20th January 2025 Trump placed Cuba on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) just 24 hours after his taking office. President Biden had taken Cuba off the list – but only a week before he was to cease being President. The appointment by Trump of Marco Rubio as his Secretary of State signalled the President’s clear intention to follow the vicious anti-Cuban policies of his co-Republican.
The SSOT status has been described by some as equivalent to an economic “death sentence”. It is designed to cut Cuba off from any access to international banking agencies making it extremely difficult, if not impossible to trade, to obtain vital medical, foodstuffs, materials and equipment critical to the functioning of the islands economy from other countries worldwide.
Cuba is trying to deal with this for example by reducing its dependency on oil to generate electricity. It has reached agreements with China, for example, to provide around 100 photovoltaic farms which are currently in the process of being installed. Whilst some hope that the BRICS group of countries might provide an alternative international currency to rival the almighty dollar that seems unlikely in the short-term and may indeed not come to fruition given the tariff war that the White House is unleashing which may indeed create divisions between China and India for example.
The USA’s tariff wars will continue. Trump is fearful of China’s influence in Latin America where some 20 countries have already joined the Belt and Road initiative, hence his obsession with the Panama Canal and the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. However, the opening of the Chancay mega-port in Peru and the much talked about potential alternative of a Nicaraguan “Panama Canal” threaten Washington’s aspitrations for the region. Whilst China will undoubtedly pursue its own economic interests in a pragmatic manner, unlike the USA, it is almost certain, given its track record, that it will not interfere in the internal politics of the countries it enters into trade agreements with.
The tariffs that Washington has imposed on China are a clear indication of the economic war for domination of the continent that is taking place. Like Monroe before him the USA is now engaged in a war to exclude China from many markets across the globe but Latin America is an immediate concern. The continent holds invaluable resources of rare earth minerals as well as oil in abundance and Washington has already mobilised the Pentagon in this economic conflict. The current head of the United States Southern Command, Admiral Alvin Holsey, has followed in the footsteps of his predecessor General Laura Richardson, in identifying the economic resources that the continent holds as being of strategic interest to the USA. On 14th January – just a week before Trump was inaugurated – the columnist Bret Stephens wrote in the New York Times a column calling for a USA military intervention to overthrow President Maduro in Venezuela.
The British government casts its vote against the inhuman blockade of Cuba but does nothing to challenge its punitive affects. The solidarity campaign with Cuba is as vital as it has ever been. Trump wants to create a unipolar world with Washington and Wall Street at its centre. Cuba demonstrates that another world is possible – one in which human life is valued and prioritised, in which people can live in dignity and at peace. It is those values which have led to Cuba standing alongside the people of Palestine against tyranny and oppression. Cuba does not stand alone but we must continue to raise our voices and encourage others to do so to end the unjustifiable assault against its sovereignty which continues to be inflicted on it by successive Presidents of the United States of America.
- Bernard Regan is Secretary of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign.
- You can follow Bernard on Twitter/X here; and follow the Cuba Solidarity Campaign on Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram.
- If you support Labour Outlook’s work amplifying the voices of left movements and struggles here and internationally, please consider becoming a supporter on Patreon.
No comments:
Post a Comment