Why Solidarity Is Vital to Freeing Imprisoned Human Rights Defenders

Every Aug. 30, the world marks the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.

By Mandeep Tiwana, Susan Marx

August 29, 2026

Source: Waging Nonviolence

Delegates raise solidarity fists at the NEA’s 2025 Representative Assembly. (Photo: National Education Association)

Every Aug. 30, the world marks the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. Beneath the official statements and solemn commemorations lies a stark, unsettling reality: the practice of making people vanish — and holding them in silence away from the world — remains a favored tactic for powerful regimes seeking to crush dissent. The goal of authoritarian states is to cut dissenters off from the outside world until public attention fades. 

Yet as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani highlighted during a global leadership summit last month, solidarity is far more than a moral sentiment; when organized effectively, it acts as a concrete strategy to pull those trapped in state-enforced shadows back into the light. 

Six years ago, when CIVICUS, a global alliance dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society, launched the Stand As My Witness campaign, we made that exact wager: that the surest way to protect an imprisoned or disappeared defender is public visibility. In practice, that means turning quiet solidarity into loud, coordinated action, sharing their stories, mobilizing petitions, amplifying their voices across borders, and forcing governments to act. The objective is simple: to make their continued detention impossible to ignore.

Since 2020, the campaign has put faces to some 50 detained defenders and helped win freedom for 32 of them. Among them are Loujain al-Hathloul, who stood up for women’s right to drive in Saudi Arabia; Floriane Irangabiye, who set up a radio station to profile the lives of exiled Burundians; and Muhammad Ismail, who spoke out against human rights abuses by security forces in Pakistan. Solidarity works. That is exactly why we cannot stop now. 

Refusing erasure

Authoritarian regimes rely on the quiet assumption that if a prisoner is hidden long enough, the outside world will simply move on. Countering this state-enforced oblivion requires bringing individual names, faces and struggles back into the light.

Khurram Parvez has spent decades ensuring that victims of state-enforced disappearances in Kashmir are not forgotten. For that work, the prominent human rights defender was jailed in November 2021 under India’s draconian anti-terror laws. In exposing how security forces made citizens vanish, Parvez became a target of the same machinery of erasure himself.

In 2023, the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared his imprisonment unlawful. Though an Indian court recently granted him bail after four and a half years without trial, state authorities moved instantly to halt his release. His ongoing ordeal is a reminder that when those who document disappearances are silenced, an entire society loses its voice.

Narges Mohammadi’s story reveals both the power of witness and its fragility. The Iranian Nobel laureate who has spoken out against torture and the death penalty has been repeatedly arrested, re-sentenced and subjected to periods of incommunicado detention — a form of short-term enforced disappearance designed to cut her off entirely from family, legal counsel and the outside world. 

Her ongoing persecution maps almost exactly onto the world’s attention span: when global pressure was high, she was granted temporary relief; when it eased, authorities placed her in punitive isolation and handed her additional sentences. In May, after collapsing in prison following suspected heart attacks, she was released on medical bail, some 45 pounds lighter and barely recognizable. Her cumulative sentence still stands at 44 years. A conditional release is not freedom, and the threat of return — and total isolation — has never lifted.

Buzurgmehr Yorov’s decade behind bars illustrates how states turn the justice system itself into a tool of erasure. Arrested in 2015 after taking on targeted political clients and speaking out against their torture, the Tajik lawyer has faced continuous punishment for refusing to stay silent. Held incommunicado and repeatedly placed in solitary isolation, he has been subjected to secret trials behind closed doors that pushed his sentence out to 2043, when he will be in his 70s. Though the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called for his immediate release years ago, Tajikistan continues to keep him in the shadows. Silencing the advocate to bury the abuse is the ultimate act of state-enforced invisibility.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya embodies a newer frontier of enforced disappearance: the deliberate targeting of those who keep others alive. Director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, he was detained by Israeli forces after refusing to abandon his patients, and he has since been held without charge, cut off from his family and the outside world as his health deteriorates. 

He is not alone. He is one of 14 Gaza doctors whose release Physicians for Human Rights-Israel is now seeking before Israel’s Supreme Court. Amnesty International has warned that his life is in grave danger, the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has ruled his detention unlawful, and Médecins Sans Frontières has called for the release of all arbitrarily detained Palestinian healthcare workers. Their vanishing carries its own chilling logic: when the very people who run toward catastrophe to save others can be made to disappear, no one is meant to feel safe.

Breaking the architecture of erasure

Demolishing this system of state-enforced silence cannot be left to traditional diplomacy or closed-door negotiation alone. Protecting the space for dissent requires transforming public solidarity into an active, organized strategy.

At that same forum, Mamdani challenged governments to consider who among today’s vilified activists will be glorified in retrospect once history passes judgment. Parvez, Mohammadi, Yorov and Dr. Abu Safiya are direct answers to that question, alongside dozens of other defenders sitting in cells or secret detention facilities.

And the space to defend them is shrinking at an alarming rate. Through the CIVICUS Monitor, we have tracked a steady global closing of civic freedoms — to the point where a mere three percent of the global population now lives in countries with open civic space. Across 83 countries now classified as “closed” or “repressed,” states rely on a familiar playbook: new laws branding activists as foreign agents, cross-border surveillance, and a news cycle so crowded with crises that political prisoners risk slipping into total obscurity.

Human rights defenders are not a threat to national security. They are often the last line of defense between a society and its own collapse: the journalists, lawyers and organizers who strive to hold power to account when institutions fail. Defending them is not charity; it is self-defense for democracy.

When powerful regimes attempt to bury dissenters in prison, global solidarity becomes a lifeline. Just as worldwide public pressure was instrumental in freeing Nelson Mandela after 27 years of state isolation, public witness remains the most formidable tool we have today. Thirty-two former political prisoners are free because ordinary people chose to speak up when states demanded silence.

As Mamdani noted, it is often in the darkest moments that true light becomes visible. The current darkness around civic freedoms is undeniable. Our ask remains deceptively simple: Learn a name. Say it out loud. Stand as a witness. Let us make sure that Khurram Parvez, Narges Mohammadi, Buzurgmehr Yorov, and Dr. Abu Safiya are not still waiting in the dark when the next anniversary comes.

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

Mandeep Tiwana

Mandeep Tiwana is the Secretary General of CIVICUS, and oversees its work on defending civic freedoms and promoting democratic values, while leading organizational engagement at the U.N. headquarters in New York.

Susan Marx

Susan is the Chief Programmmes Officer at CIVICUS, where she stewards global efforts to strengthen civil society, defend civic freedoms and support human rights defenders, women leaders, youth activists and environmental justice movements.

The Mecca Pact Redraws Asia’s Security Map – Analysis

Credit: OpenAI / Ramesh Jaura


August 27, 2026

By Ramesh Jaura

Key Takeaways:

Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan pledged in Mecca that an attack on one would be treated as an attack on all; they are now adding ministerial mechanisms, exercises, and defense-industry ties—but the pact still lacks NATO-style command, definitions, or automatic obligations.

The deal grew from Gulf insecurity after Iran-related strikes and doubts about U.S. guarantees; Washington has welcomed it as burden-sharing, while China, Iran, Egypt, and India each read it through their own interests.

Ambiguity is both deterrent and risk: members do not share the same rivals, nuclear implications are unofficial and unproven, and a crisis involving India, Iran, Yemen, or the Mediterranean could test whether the promise holds.

Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan have pledged to treat an attack on one as an attack on all. Egypt is weighing membership, Washington has welcomed the move, Iran wants reassurance, China sees opportunity, and India is watching closely. A new security order may be forming, but its direction is unclear.

The place was chosen with care: Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, where Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met on 7 August and declared: “Any armed attack against any one of the three States shall be regarded as an attack against them all.”

It was a short sentence with a long shadow.

For Saudi Arabia, it offered protection when American guarantees no longer felt sufficient. For Türkiye, it gave Erdoğan another route to make his country an independent centre of power. For Pakistan, poor but militarily important, it reminded others that Islamabad cannot be ignored.

Together, they bring a rare mix. Saudi Arabia has wealth, energy power and influence across the Arab and Muslim worlds. Türkiye has NATO’s second-largest army and a fast-growing defence industry. Pakistan has a large, battle-tested military—and the only nuclear arsenal held by a Muslim-majority country.

It did not take long for commentators to call the new grouping an “Islamic NATO,” or sometimes a “Sunni NATO.” The description is tempting. It is also misleading.

NATO was built over decades. It has integrated command, military plans, shared procedures and a bureaucracy that works even when leaders disagree. The Mecca pact has none of that yet. It does not define an attack, say who decides one has occurred, or spell out what each member must do.

Would military support be automatic? Could one member decline to fight? Would Türkiye’s obligations under the new pact conflict with its duties as a NATO member? The agreement leaves these questions open.

But dismissing the pact as a ceremonial gesture would now be equally misleading.

Six days after the signing, Türkiye’s Defence Ministry began giving the pact substance. The partners plan political and military mechanisms linking foreign ministers, defence ministers and commanders. They intend to hold exercises on land, sea, air and cyberspace, and to cooperate on drones, artificial intelligence, electronic warfare, military production and technology transfer.

Reuters reported that the three defence industries would also be brought closer together.

The Mecca Agreement is not yet an Islamic NATO. But neither is it merely a piece of paper. It is an alliance being built while the surrounding region burns.Subscribe
A pact born in a frightened region

The agreement emerged, at least in part, from fear.

The United States and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February 2026, triggering a confrontation that crossed borders and sea routes. Iranian missiles and Tehran-aligned armed groups threatened Gulf states, oil facilities and commercial shipping. The Houthis intensified attacks from Yemen. The Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb again became places where one strike could raise prices and shake governments.

Soon after the pact was signed, three Pakistanis were killed in a Houthi attack on a vessel in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Their deaths underlined a hard truth: conflicts in the Gulf, Red Sea and South Asia can no longer be kept apart.


The immediate danger explains why they signed the agreement. But behind it lies an older anxiety: can the United States still be trusted to protect its partners?

For decades, Gulf monarchies lived under an American security umbrella. US troops, intelligence, weapons and political commitments sustained the regional order. That relationship still matters. Saudi Arabia buys vast quantities of American arms, and no regional combination can easily replace America’s military reach.

But trust has thinned.

The 2019 attacks on Saudi oil facilities Abqaiq and the Khurais oil field exposed how vulnerable the kingdom had become to inexpensive missiles and drones. Washington did not retaliate directly against Iran. Riyadh remembered.

Then came America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Regional governments watched how US forces left. The circumstances were different, but the question travelled beyond Kabul: if American priorities changed, who might be left next?


Washington was turning towards China while its Middle Eastern partners dealt with Iran, proxy forces, missiles, drones and the aftershocks of the Gaza war.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House did not remove uncertainty. His administration has shown it is willing to use enormous force. But that does not mean partners always know when America will act, how far it will go or what they will endure when it does.

Saudi Arabia is not breaking with Washington. It is doing something more careful: ensuring Washington is no longer its only option.

The kingdom has strengthened relations with China, restored diplomatic ties with Iran, kept channels open to Russia and invested heavily in its defence industry. The Mecca pact adds two more layers of protection: Türkiye and Pakistan.

It does not announce the end of American power in the Gulf. It shows that American power is no longer accepted as the only pillar on which security rests.
America applauds—but may not control what follows

Washington’s response has complicated the idea that the pact is an act of rebellion against the United States.

On 16 August, Trump said he was “very happy” that Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan had “recently, and finally” signed the agreement. He called it a “big, bold, and important first step” and praised the three governments for becoming better able to defend themselves. Anadolu Agency reported his remarks.


Trump has long argued that America’s allies should spend more and carry more of their own defence burden. From that angle, the Mecca pact is useful. It could allow regional states to handle more of their security without repeatedly calling on Washington.

The arrangement does not immediately threaten America’s position. Türkiye remains in NATO. Saudi Arabia still depends heavily on American weapons, intelligence and logistical support. Pakistan continues to work with Washington on terrorism and regional diplomacy.

For the moment, the United States can welcome the pact as burden-sharing.

But there is a catch.

If the three countries produce weapons together, exchange intelligence and build crisis procedures, they will need less American permission and protection. Greater capability will give them more freedom to make choices Washington may dislike. The pact may not be designed to push America out, but it could help create a region where America is no longer central to every calculation.
What the three partners want

Each of the three countries sees something different in the agreement.

For Saudi Arabia, the attraction is protection—and access.

Pakistan has trained Saudi officers and soldiers for decades. Pakistani troops have served in the kingdom before. The military relationship is not new; the pact gives it a more formal and politically stronger shape.

Türkiye offers something else: a defence industry that can supply weapons more cheaply and often with fewer conditions than Western governments impose. Its drones, missiles, warships, armoured vehicles and electronic-warfare systems have attracted buyers across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia wants to produce more of its own weapons under Vision 2030. Joint ventures with Turkish and Pakistani companies could help reduce its dependence on expensive Western imports.

For Türkiye, the pact is an opportunity to expand its reach.

Erdoğan does not want Türkiye seen merely as NATO’s difficult southeastern member. He wants it recognised as a power in its own right, with influence from the Black Sea and Mediterranean to the Middle East, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean.

Weapons are now an important part of that ambition. Turkish drones have affected the course of several wars. Defence exports bring money, influence and long-term political relationships. The Mecca pact opens a much larger field for all three.


Pakistan’s gains are different but just as important.

Islamabad’s economy remains fragile. Saudi loans and deposits have helped it through crises. Türkiye has supported Pakistan politically, especially over Kashmir, and the two countries have developed close defence ties.

By standing beside the rulers of Saudi Arabia and Türkiye in Mecca, Pakistan sent a message: whatever its economic troubles, it remains a country whose military strength and nuclear weapons give it strategic value.

The agreement also confirms the weight of Pakistan’s military establishment. Field Marshal Asim Munir has been publicly credited with helping to bring it about. In Pakistan, the most important ties with China, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and the United States are rarely shaped by civilian diplomacy alone.

Yet the three partners do not share the same enemies.

Pakistan’s principal conventional rival is India. Türkiye is preoccupied with Syria, Kurdish armed groups and its disputes involving Greece, Cyprus and Israel. Saudi Arabia is focused on Iran, the Houthis, missile and drone attacks, Red Sea shipping and the security of its oil installations.

Sooner or later, those differences will matter.

Would Türkiye and Saudi Arabia regard an Indian strike on Pakistan as an attack on all three? Would Pakistan be expected to help Türkiye in a clash with Greece, another NATO member? If the Houthis struck Saudi Arabia, would Islamabad and Ankara be required to join a war in Yemen? What if a Saudi–Iranian confrontation escalated?

The pact does not answer.

Ambiguity can deter. An adversary may hesitate if it cannot predict how three countries will respond. But it can also tempt an ally to take risks, expecting support that may not arrive.

Even NATO’s celebrated Article 5 does not automatically send every member to war. It allows each ally to take “such action as it deems necessary.” Political leaders still decide what solidarity means.

The Mecca pact will face the same test. Promises made in a palace are one thing. Keeping them when soldiers may die is another.
The nuclear question no one can avoid

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons hover over every discussion of the agreement.

Has Islamabad quietly placed Saudi Arabia or Türkiye under a nuclear umbrella? Would Pakistan threaten nuclear retaliation if the Saudi state faced an overwhelming attack?


Nothing in the public text says so. Pakistan has announced no nuclear guarantee. No evidence shows it has transferred weapons or control to either partner. Saudi officials insist the agreement is not tied to nuclear ambition or an arms race.

That caution matters. Speculation should not be mistaken for fact.

Saudi Arabia is a non-nuclear member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Türkiye is also an NPT member and already participates in NATO’s nuclear arrangements. Any transfer of nuclear weapons would create an international crisis.

But nuclear deterrence depends as much on uncertainty as on published doctrine.

A country considering a devastating attack on Saudi Arabia must ask whether Pakistan would remain uninvolved if the kingdom’s survival were at stake. The absence of an answer may be part of the deterrent.

It may also make the region less safe.

Israel has an undeclared nuclear arsenal. Iran has advanced nuclear capabilities. Pakistan has tested weapons. Türkiye belongs to a nuclear alliance. American forces are spread across the region. Now a new defence pact enters this crowded landscape with unclear nuclear limits.

There is another source of concern. The Trump administration has pursued a civilian nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia that reportedly drops safeguards Washington previously demanded, including a categorical Saudi renunciation of uranium enrichment and reprocessing and acceptance of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Additional Protocol.

Reuters reported that arms-control advocates and members of Congress feared that the proposed terms could weaken non-proliferation standards.

A civil nuclear programme is not a nuclear-weapons programme. But in this region, intentions are viewed through a lens of fear. Iran’s capabilities, Pakistan’s arsenal and weaker safeguards around Saudi nuclear development would inevitably be considered together.

A shield built to make Saudi Arabia feel safer could deepen the nuclear anxieties of everyone around it.
Is Iran the enemy—or a neighbour to be reassured?

Because the three signatories are Sunni-majority countries, the pact has often been described as an alliance against Shia-majority Iran.

The timing strengthens that interpretation. Iran and armed groups aligned with it have attacked Saudi interests. Türkiye cooperates with Tehran in some areas while competing with it in Syria, Iraq, Central Asia and the Caucasus. Pakistan shares a difficult border with Iran and has exchanged cross-border strikes with it.


But the relationship cannot be reduced to an old sectarian divide.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan says the pact identifies no enemy. Pakistan calls it “purely defensive.” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei initially responded with caution rather than outrage. Iran, he said, need not fear regional self-reliance if it remained inclusive and addressed the real causes of insecurity.

Hard-line voices in Tehran were less forgiving. They asked how Pakistan could join a defence agreement with Saudi Arabia while claiming to be an honest mediator between Iran and the United States. Others warned Riyadh that a written pact would not guarantee its safety.

Erdoğan then demonstrated how the new allies hope to use their position.

On 17 August, Erdoğan urged Trump to return to talks with Iran and offered Türkiye’s help. Ankara said it would keep working with the United States, Iran, Pakistan, Qatar and other mediators. At the same time, Erdoğan praised the Mecca pact as a contribution to regional security—Reuters reported Türkiye’s attempt to combine deterrence with diplomacy.

Pakistan is trying to do the same.

Field Marshal Munir was due in Tehran on 24 August for talks with senior Iranian officials. The agenda was expected to include Pakistan’s efforts to mediate between Washington and Tehran, the Mecca Agreement, the Houthis and the dispute over the Strait of Hormuz. Reuters reported that the planned visit to Washington would pave the way for another round of punishing sanctions against Iran.

Munir’s visit carries special weight. He is not only Pakistan’s most powerful soldier but also a central figure behind the Mecca pact. Iranian officials will want to hear from him directly: is this alliance a shield, a sword or both?

Pakistan has placed itself in a difficult position. It must persuade Saudi Arabia that it is a dependable defence partner while convincing Iran that it has not joined a hostile front. It must keep Washington engaged without becoming an instrument of American pressure.

The pact’s first serious test may therefore come not on a battlefield but in a room in Tehran. Can Pakistan and Türkiye help deter Iran without making dialogue with Iran impossible?
Egypt stands at the door

Türkiye has made clear it does not want the alliance to remain a three-member club. Egypt is the most obvious prospective member.

Cairo is no longer merely observing. Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty says his government is studying membership “very seriously,” though any decision must fit Egypt’s constitution and legal commitments. Chatham House sees the hesitation as political as well as legal. Egypt has long avoided binding military blocs and wants to preserve its role as mediator. Joining could look like taking sides against Iran, Israel, the UAE, Greece, Cyprus or India without giving Cairo clear security gains. For now, Egypt has reason to wait, watch how the pact works in a crisis and keep its options open.


The Gulf states face the same problem. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates do not always agree on regional priorities. Qatar and its neighbours recently emerged from a bitter blockade. Oman prizes its independence and role as mediator.

The Mecca pact is therefore unlikely to become a military organisation embracing all 57 members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

A smaller core is more plausible, surrounded by looser arrangements for tasks: protecting Red Sea shipping, sharing intelligence, coordinating missile defence, countering drones, fighting terrorism and producing weapons.

That may sound less dramatic than an Islamic NATO. It could prove more useful.
China: The Power Outside the Pact

China did not sign the Mecca Agreement, and no evidence shows Beijing designed it. Yet its influence is impossible to ignore.

Pakistan’s “all-weather” partnership with China is one of Asia’s deepest military relationships. Beijing supplies aircraft, missiles, air-defence systems and warships, and the two countries jointly produce the JF-17 fighter. In April, Pakistan commissioned the first of eight planned Chinese-designed Hangor-class submarines, four to be built in Pakistan under a technology-transfer deal. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute⁠, China supplied 80 per cent of Pakistan’s major arms imports between 2021 and 2025.

The pact could bring Chinese, Turkish and Western systems into the same network. Türkiye offers drones, missiles, electronic warfare and a growing defence industry. Saudi Arabia brings money but still relies mainly on American and other Western equipment. Making these systems work together will require compatible communications, command procedures, maintenance chains and training.

That helps explain why Türkiye’s Defence Ministry has put joint exercises, production, technology cooperation and “sustainable maintenance and logistics support” at the centre of the deal. Reuters reported⁠ that cooperation will span land, sea, air and cyber operations, with attention to drones, electronic warfare and artificial intelligence. Over time, this could create a military-industrial network that Beijing does not control, but that depends less on the West.

China’s economic presence matters too. The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor links western China to Gwadar on the Arabian Sea. China is also a major buyer of Saudi oil and an investor in the kingdom’s infrastructure, telecommunications and renewable energy. Its mediation of the Saudi–Iranian rapprochement in 2023 showed it can exercise influence in a region long dominated by Washington.

Saudi Arabia does not expect China to replace the United States as its military protector, and Beijing has shown little interest in assuming that burden. But China offers trade, investment, technology and another option. Türkiye’s ties with Beijing are more guarded because of NATO, Europe and differences over Uyghurs. Even so, Erdoğan values relationships that widen Ankara’s room for manoeuvre.


Beijing can stay outside the pact and still benefit. It may gain from a less American-centred region, finance infrastructure and supply weapons without defending the alliance. For India, already facing China’s military partnership with Pakistan, that is hardly reassuring.
India has reason to watch—but not to panic

India’s ties with China have steadied slightly. Talks on the disputed frontier have resumed, but the damage from Galwan remains: troops are still deployed, claims unresolved and mistrust deep.

China’s support for Pakistan adds another layer to India’s concerns.

The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor runs through territory India claims. New Delhi sees it as both an economic project and a breach of sovereignty. Indian planners must still weigh pressure from Pakistan and China at once, even if neither side wants a two-front war.

The Mecca pact could connect this tense South Asian picture to West Asian politics.

Pakistani forces, already heavily supplied by China, may gain access to Turkish technology, Saudi money, shared intelligence and joint planning. Such shifts rarely appear overnight; they gather force slowly.

India’s government has said it is examining the pact’s implications for national security and regional stability and will take the necessary steps to protect Indian interests.

New Delhi is right to seek clarity.

Türkiye has backed Pakistan on Kashmir. The two countries cooperate on warships, exercises, training and aircraft modernisation. Saudi Arabia’s 2025 defence agreement with Pakistan laid the ground for the trilateral pact.

In a future crisis, Pakistan could invoke the Mecca Agreement even if Riyadh and Ankara had no wish to fight India.

Would the pact apply only after an unprovoked attack? Could Islamabad invoke it after a terrorist incident or an exchange across the Line of Control? Who would decide who started the conflict?

India is asking those questions quietly without turning concern into panic.

Saudi Arabia’s ties with India have deepened. The kingdom supplies energy, invests in India and hosts a large Indian community. The two governments cooperate on trade, terrorism, technology, maritime security and defence.

Riyadh has no reason to sacrifice this relationship for Pakistan. Saudi foreign policy has become practical and flexible. It can maintain a defence pact with Islamabad while expanding relations with New Delhi.


India appears to be taking the same approach: deepen Gulf ties, seek assurances, monitor Pakistan’s defence links with Türkiye and China, and strengthen its naval presence in the Arabian Sea.

The Ministry of External Affairs has dismissed reports that India sought an urgent mutual-defence pact with Israel as fabricated. India already has close defence ties with Israel. Turning them into an openly anti-Muslim alignment would damage decades of careful diplomacy across the Arab world.

India’s strength has long been its ability to deal with rivals at the same time: Saudi Arabia and Iran, Israel and the Arab states, the United States and Russia.

The Mecca pact makes that balancing act harder—and more necessary.
A promise waiting to be tested

The agreement does not prove that a new regional order has arrived. Its members may find unity easier to declare than to practise.

But it does show that the old order is fading.

Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan are not abandoning old relationships; they are adding new ones. They want choices and no longer want security to depend on a single power whose priorities can shift after an election, war or crisis.

Trump sees burden-sharing. China sees opportunity. Iran wants to know whether the pact targets it. Egypt is weighing membership. India is asking whether Pakistan’s reach has grown.

The pact remains several things at once: a shield, a warning, an arms partnership, a diplomatic tool, and a claim to greater independence.

It could make the three countries safer. It could also spread conflicts across regions.

An India–Pakistan crisis could gain a Middle Eastern dimension. A Saudi–Iranian confrontation could draw in Pakistan and Türkiye. A Turkish dispute in the Mediterranean could test commitments Riyadh and Islamabad never expected to keep.

The stronger the alliance becomes, the more restraint it will need.

Its members must define aggression, set clear consultation procedures, keep politics in control of military decisions and clarify where conventional cooperation ends and the nuclear shadow begins.

Mecca produced a dramatic promise: an attack on one will be treated as an attack on all. Weapons, exercises and political machinery now support it. Its meaning, however, will remain uncertain until someone asks the three countries to keep it.

When that day comes, the question will not be what leaders signed in Mecca, but what they are prepared to sacrifice—and whether their shield makes a frightened region safer or gives it new reasons to fear.

About Ramesh Jaura
Ramesh Jaura is a journalist with 60 years of experience as a freelancer, head of Inter Press Service, and founder-editor of IDN-InDepthNews. His work draws on field reporting and coverage of international conferences and events.
View all posts by Ramesh Jaura →

 On Slow Violence in Cuba

Tre Nowaczynski

 August 5, 2026

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Photograph Source: Jason Gamble – Unsplash

The rooftop of Azotea de la India in Centro Habana offers respite. At this elevation, just peaking over the rival buildings, the sea breeze races across the island struggling to combat the heat that blankets the streets below. This place is a Cuban archive, an unmatched collection of vinyl records from a bygone era of cultural production, curated alongside a Cuban cocktail class. Dayle and Pancho are a Cuban-Italian couple skilled as artists, craftspeople and historians. When they are not hosting listening sessions, this space is a haven for artists and other creatives that resist succumbing to the despair of the country below. Instead, they have created a space for joy to exist and propagate, to cultivate community, to take care of their neighbors and to embody the resilience of the Cuban identity. A 1960’s Irakere jazz record ricochets off neighboring walls and spills down the unseen alleyways below. Everything in this space is recycled and re-purposed by hand. The bar, the DJ booth, the dining table and the generator articulate more than a gritty DIY event space – this is a passion project of preservation that simply could not be accomplished without care and love for Cuba.

In many ways, a short research-focused trip to Havana in mid-May of 2026 is wildly incapable of capturing Cuba in its entirety; certainly not the amplified precarity of our contemporary moment. My profession and political proximity to violence, however, lends itself well to discuss the unique cadence of war that Cuba is embattled in. In contrast to the pure carnage the world has witnessed in Gaza, in Sudan, in Ukraine, in Kashmir and in the DR, Americans are co-authoring a slow violence that violates the international human rights of the Cuban people (Nixon 2013). This slow violence is responsible for crimes against humanity and for violating multiple United Nations Charters for Human Rights. I will not make broad sweeping generalizations about the Cuban government here, though it should be of note that the Cuban citizens who held space for me will not excuse their government’s role in their decades-long suffering. This, however, is a key feature of this silent military strategy. In economic warfare, sanctions and embargoes are offensive volleys aimed at starving out international commerce, stagnating value, production, prosperity and daily life for citizens in the public sector.

These are not poorly calculated decisions but rather precise attacks on communist rule. Communism, or rather the goal thereof is, “the creation of a state where every person can contribute according to their ability, and in return receive what is necessary to live equally with everyone else, Furthermore, “the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not ‘abolished’. It withers away,” (Engels 1932). Since communism is seen as a direct threat to the global dominance of US empire and capitalism, coercing a government into paralysis and shaming it publicly as a failed state requiring intervention are important components of a much larger campaign of manufactured ruin. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has peddled this propaganda and seemingly awaits ascendance to the Republican party throne, gambling on the fall of Cuba’s regime as his crown achievement as a politician. His Cuban-American heritage serves as a credential to validate his approval of human suffering, all without acknowledging the critical role that American policy has served in crushing any attempts for the communist state to thrive, starting in 1960.

Rubio wants to usher in a new era for Cubans, one that is (allegedly) prosperous for all. But he noticeably ignores advice from revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara who warned in 1960: “the first thing we will have to do is not to go to the people to offer them our wisdom. We must go, rather, to demonstrate that we are going to learn with the people, that together we are going to carry out that great and beautiful common experiment: the construction of a new Cuba,” (On Revolutionary Medicine 1960). Modern day American foreign policy blatantly ignores collaboration with Cuban citizens. Instead, it forges a path forward with its most central insight from land developers and expatriates of the Cuban regime, hawkish to re-make the island fit for their capitalist dreams.

Although Havana lacks the more traditional, physical features of war that we have consented to as Americans, the suffering is equally visceral, an unabashed display of collective punishment. In a socialized economy under duress, struggle is ubiquitous, and these woes are on the minds and tongues of everyone you may encounter. Strains of exhaustion haunt the faces of caregivers who fought for sleep during frequent blackouts during scorching night; bodies ghastly from inadequate food rations. Families sprawl onto the streets in the late afternoon to escape damning heat that suffocates an overcrowded electrical grid and makeshift housing arrangements. At local, state-run bodegas, bread stores and produce markets, supplies are sparse – if available at all – they are low quality and hardly answer the beckoning hunger in the bellies of the elderly and children. Pensions and salaries (sometimes less than the equivalent of $20 US dollars a month) are simply insufficient. During a thorough tour through Old Havana a brilliant sociologist named Yoly told me that these state allowances were not always so dismal. There was a time in the country when agricultural production was abundant and fuel was widely available to transport goods and services across the island. There was a time when guarantees of free education, health care, housing and food were more than empty ambitions for a young nation who dreamt of a future beyond the inherent exploitations of Western capitalism.

Cubans are not unfamiliar with the requirements of revolution: the sacrifice, the risk and the costs of freedom. Unfortunately, a country whose low birthrate and rapidly aging population is at a costly moment in history where these values and identity may very well be forgotten. There is a very stark, generational gap in understanding Cuba’s history. This too, is a direct outcome of decades long unilateral policy of sanctions, embargoes and blockades. After the Special Period of the 1990s, the collapse of the Soviet Union and their subsidies caused the contraction of the Cuban GDP by more than 30% between 1989 and 1993. It also caused a severance of memory within a class of citizens who lack both a historical analysis of material conditions and lived experience under another reality. The only Cuba that young people know is of a government that has been chronically shorthanded, struggling to provide in the public sector. While there was an era of considerable improvement in the private sector under President Obama, the windfalls of this moment were not concretized or advanced into lasting foreign policy. The present reveals a generation who has slowly gained access to other, more individualistic ways of life. Private investment, content filtered through (illegal) VPNs and increased access to public Wi-Fi have offered alternatives to a national identity rooted in communal survival. “The internal blockade” is a common phrase that was repeated to me in various conversations with locals discussing their current living conditions and refers to a lack of transparency, active suppression and censorship efforts perpetuated by the Cuban government. While this may very well be an effort to preserve revolutionary Cuban ideals, it has undoubtedly fomented anger and frustration.

This erosion of trust in governance simultaneously creates a loosening attachment to national pride and identity. An entire class of people now exist who don’t care if foreign invasion or takeover happens because perhaps tomorrow will bring change and hope for the future. Anything is better than the status quo. Slow violence via embargoes and sanctions create political apathy and sows the seeds of discontent without firing weapons or threatening military action. It intentionally destabilizes the government while promoting and enabling human suffering amongst the masses. It pits those with access to foreign investment in the private sector against those without, historically the most vulnerable. It creates new social divisions that feed on inequality and unrest. This is a man-made crisis, full stop. No better crystallization of policy-driven inequity exists than the words written in a memorandum from the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs in 1960,” …If the above are accepted or cannot be successfully countered, it follows that every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. If such a policy is adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth 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,” (Mallory Memorandum 1960).

Cuba is a country who has long provided the highest level of medical education and gifted this knowledge back to the world’s most underserved and is now without the capacity to save lives within its own borders. Cuban patients are suffering at an accelerated rate without power for ventilators, in intensive care units, without adequate medical interventions. This is further exacerbated by deferred procedures, sub-optimal antibiotic provisions and an inability to transport sick patients to facilities across the island. Human decisions have decided that this level of suffering is not only acceptable, but gainful for scavenging capitalists looking to prop up their ventures without the regulations and tax code of their homelands. Every day that the United States unilaterally allows these conditions to persist, every day that these sanctions force the termination of business relationships, including global, with punitive legal restrictions, Cuban people die. The US government is in an ideological war of ideas, using this to justify avoidable casualties without claiming them as victims of war.

“People speak sometimes about the ‘bestial’ cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts. No animal could ever be so cruel as man, so artfully, artistically cruel.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime & Punishment 2006

On the night of May 13th, 2026 I descended the steps of Azotea de la India filled with a sense of hope of what resilience is, and reminders of what place joy has in liberation. On the street, I am met with a contradicting reality. Without the generator-powered luxuries of the rooftop, Havana is enduring yet another hours-long blackout. The urban density is all but invisible in the darkness and yet, life persists. The absence of power creates a kind of deafening silence only punctuated by battery powered radios, speakers, and flashlights. In the darkness, children stay up past conventional bedtimes, playing in the streets, laughing through disaster, at last avoiding the stagnant heat that builds mercilessly in the absence of airflow. I navigate the silence, about thirty minutes walking distance from my hostel, buoyed by their resilience. The stars are on full display, typically a view observed only from the countryside. Roads are nearly absent of vehicles, save for the few electric transports, bikes and horse drawn carriages. It’s hard to put into words how jarring this experience is. In some contexts, this kind of suffering might incite panic, interpersonal and community violence, or uprising. Instead, the Cuban people have not faltered.

Perhaps we can learn from this, if we are careful and intentional in our dreams of collective liberation. It is one thing to name injustice from my privileged position in the United States. It is another bear witness to the suffering our political institutions have caused. From a country that glorifies individual achievement, the rest of the world remains on fire around us, at our expense.

“Isolated individual endeavor, for all its purity of ideals, is of no use, and the desire to sacrifice an entire lifetime to the noblest of ideals serves no purpose if one works alone, solitarily, in some corner of America, fighting against adverse governments and social conditions which prevent progress.” Ernesto “Che” Guevara, On Revolutionary Medicine 1960.

Despite an onslaught of mandates aimed at destroying the political will of the people and creating opportunity to revolt and uproot the communist regime, Cubans wait in perpetuity. Wait for change that may yet come, wait for relief that is barred from its shores, wait for a dignified response to the slow violence that all but erases hope for the future. And still, Cuba has demonstrated that continued survival may be the most powerful iteration of defense and liberation on display. Long. Live. Cuba.

References:

Collective Punishment | The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law. (2026, May 10). Guide-Humanitarian-Law.Org. https://guide-humanitarian-law.org/collective-punishment

Dostoyevsky, F. (2000). Crime and Punishment (R. Pevear & L. Volokhonsky, Trans.). David Campbell Publishers. (Original work published 1866)

Engels, F. (1932). Socialism : utopian and scientific. Allen & Unwin.

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Cuba, Volume VI – Office of the Historian. (n.d.). In history.state.gov. Retrieved July 31, 2026, from https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v06/d499

Irakere. (1985). Bailando Asi. In Spotify. Arieto. https://open.spotify.com/album/24BqqFHNww0T4dwlx5aMYq

Nixon, R. (2011). Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt2jbsgw

On Revolutionary Medicine. (2026). Marxists.Org. https://www.marxists.org/archive/guevara/1960/08/19.htm

Slow violence (concept) | Research Starters | EBSCO Research. (2021). In EBSCO. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/environmental-sciences/slow-violence-concept

Studio ATAO | Understanding Socialism in the U.S. (2019). Studio ATAO. https://www.studioatao.org/socialism?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=14173103193&gclid=Cj0KCQjwjb3SBhDgARIsAMKiWzjqLI-sTxnYgm6VcDZkw5g2YWstAhmHVtqhB05KN9-DzYy5asxIWtUaAploEALw_wcB

Tre Nowaczynski is a social worker at the University of Chicago.

The Costs of the U.S. Blockade of Cuba

Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” ushers in a “New Special Period.”

By Margot Pepper

August 3, 2026

Source: Dollars and Sense

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

The Trump Administration’s indictment of former Cuban President Raúl Castro, the deployment of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and warships, and recent measures pressuring countries not to supply oil to Cuba are all intended to force regime change on the island. These policies are part of the United States’ long-standing campaign against the Cuban government, codified in 1962 with the U.S. embargo on Cuba, and have created what could be described as Cuba’s “New Special Period,” comparable to the original “Special Period” in the 1990s after the loss of support from the Soviet Union. The Cuban revolution against the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship has survived 64 of its 67 years under what U.S. officials call an “embargo.” Cubans call it “el bloqueo” (the blockade), arguing that its impact has been just as physically isolating as a military blockade. Suffering aside, the amount of money that the United States has spent on enforcing this policy of economic isolation—the longest blockade in history—could instead have been used to address pressing social needs throughout the United States. This raises the question: Was the blockade worth the cost? And if so, for whom?

According to Doctors Without Borders’ “The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law,” a blockade is an act of war that seeks to isolate an adversary, disrupt economic activity, and prevent the movement of vital supplies. Under an embargo, a country prohibits its own companies or subsidiaries from engaging in business with another country, rather than interfering with third parties. Through what is essentially a broader economic blockade, the United States has intermittently prevented Cuba from commerce with other nations. As President Donald Trump has become even more strident, the United Nations has criticized his administration’s policy of imposing tariffs on any country that sends oil to Cuba as a serious violation of international law. Earlier this year, a military blockade was evident as “the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a tanker full of Colombian fuel oil en route to Cuba within 70 miles of the island,” according to the New York Times. The U.S. government knows that a blockade is an act of war, according to Connecticut Congressperson Joe Courtney, who said in a recent press release, “The international law, actually, in terms of blockades, was established in 1909 at the London Naval Conference, which the U.S. participated in and the U.S. Senate actually voted to endorse, and it defined blockades as an act of war.”
That is why, until now, U.S. administrations have been so adamant about calling such sanctions an “embargo.” Understanding how this economic campaign against Cuba began, along with its impacts on Cuba and beyond, will help us better understand the current situation between the United States and Cuba.

The Origins of the “Embargo”

The original justification for the embargo in the early 1960s was Cuba’s expropriation of “some $1.8 billion worth of U.S.-owned property,” according to the U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission. In turn, Cubans argue that earlier in the century the United States had seized control of 70% of Cuban land and three-quarters of its primary industry—sugar—which Carollee Bengelsdorf, in The Problem of Democracy in Cuba, describes as the “virtual ‘confiscation’ of [Cuba’s] economy by the United States.” By the 1950s, as a result of U.S. wealth-extraction and the legacy of Spanish colonial rule, five out of six Cubans lived in shacks or were homeless, 80% of Havana’s residents suffered from hunger and unemployment, and two-thirds of Cuban children didn’t attend school. Cuban census data for those years reveal that only 3% of rural Cubans had habitable housing, only 10% enjoyed running water or electricity, and more than half of the Cuban population lived in housing that lacked cement walls or floors. Cubans say such conditions left them no recourse in 1959 but to expel the “Yanquis” and reclaim their own territories and businesses, just as the Yankees had expelled the British in 1776. The result was an exodus of around a quarter of a million of mostly wealthy Batista loyalists, now the anti-Castro Cuban-American lobby.

If we are to hold Cuba accountable for roughly $4.5 billion in U.S. claims stemming from the 5,911 cases certified by the U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission against the Cuban government for the expropriations it carried out primarily from 1960–1961, one can hardly comprehend what the United States would owe to British Loyalists and the Crown after 250 years.

Pressured by the Cuban-American lobby, this parallel has escaped both Republican and Democratic U.S. administrations. To exact revenge, in 1962 President John F. Kennedy invoked the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, the legal basis for the trade embargo, which allowed the United States to freeze Cuban assets and prohibit financial transactions. Then, in 1966, the Helms-Burton Act tightened the economic blockade by punishing foreign companies doing business in Cuba. In 1992, worsening the impact of the Soviet collapse, President George H. W. Bush signed the Torricelli Act, banning foreign U.S. subsidiaries from trading with Cuba.
From 2017 to 2021, invoking dormant portions of the Helms-Burton Act, Trump relisted Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, restricted travel and remittances, and encouraged lawsuits against companies “trafficking” or engaging in business with property nationalized by the 1959 Cuban Revolution. This paved the way for the 2026 Supreme Court ruling allowing the U.S.-based Havana Docks Corporation to sue four cruise lines for docking in Havana ports that were nationalized by the Cuban government before 1960.

Trump’s attacks on Cuba have more recently come to mirror his broader “maximum pressure” strategy, which combines severe economic sanctions and international isolation in an effort to topple adversarial governments in Latin America and the Middle East, particularly targeting Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela.

Trump’s January 29, 2026, Executive Order expanded his maximum pressure campaign by imposing tariffs on countries sending fuel to Cuba, and his May 1, 2026, Executive Order authorized the United States to seize assets belonging to foreign individuals found to be “trafficking” in blacklisted or nationalized properties.

The Costs to the United States of Maximum Pressure

Most countries have consistently supported U.N. resolutions opposing U.S. actions against Cuba. U.N. experts call the blockade an “extreme form of unilateral economic coercion” that violates international law. They say it obstructs the “Cuban people’s right to development while undermining their rights to food, education, health, and water and sanitation.” For 34 consecutive years, since 1992, the U.N. General Assembly has overwhelmingly passed resolutions demanding an end to the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba, citing the violation of international law. Annual votes consistently see over 180 countries opposing the U.S. stance, with only the United States and Israel typically voting against.
The U.S. public has been skeptical of the blockade for decades. A 2016 Pew Research Center poll revealed that 73% of Americans favored ending the blockade. More recently, a February 25, 2026 poll by YouGov shows that not even a third of people in the United States approve of the blockade, and only 13% support attacking Cuba. Just 5% of Americans view Cuba as a serious threat. To put this in perspective, 4% of Americans view Canada as a threat, too. A 2024 Data for Progress poll shows that only roughly a quarter of Americans oppose lifting travel restrictions to the island.

These percentages might be higher were the public aware that the blockade is costing us more than Cuba. The Cuba Policy Foundation estimates that the United States is losing up to $4.84 billion annually in sales and exports. “If the embargo were lifted, the average American farmer would feel a difference in his or her life within two to three years,” the study’s author wrote. At $4.84 billion a year, over the lifespan of 64 years, the United States has missed out on $310 billion—nearly enough to provide a home for every unhoused person in the country. (According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the number of people experiencing homelessness in 2024 peaked at 771,480 people. This is about $402,000 per unhoused individual, just shy of the Median Home Listing Price of $425,000.) While this won’t fix the structural causes of homelessness, it would represent a transformative solution. The housing comparison is just one way of understanding the scale of that figure. A total of $310 billion could also put $1,890 in the pocket of each of the nation’s 164 million taxpayers.

In turn, as Helen Yaffe notes in a Jacobin article from earlier this year, “In 2025, Cuba’s annual report to the United Nations put the cumulative cost of the U.S. blockade at over $170 billion. Costs are rising year after year, reaching $7.6 billion from March 2024 to February 2025 alone.” This would put the cost for Cuba to date at about $178 billion, a little over half of the $310 billion the United States has spent so far.

The blockade has also deprived the U.S. public of Cuba’s medical breakthroughs. In 2008 Cuba released Cimavax, the first lung cancer vaccine which extended life in lung cancer patients while also easing breathing and restoring appetite. In 2022, Cuba released NeuroEPO, which reverses cognitive decline in patients with Alzheimer’s. U.S. consumers have also been denied access to the world’s first meningitis B vaccine; Cuba’s potent Covid vaccines; Heberprot-P, a treatment for severe diabetic foot wounds that also significantly reduces the risk of lower-limb amputations; technologies for hearing impairment; treatments for retinitis pigmentosa (a group of rare eye diseases that affect the retina); and PPG, a popular cholesterol-reducing drug with the side effect of increased sexual potency.

Until maximum pressure, the socialist island managed to provide all its inhabitants with what the most affluent country in the world could not: free top-notch health care, free university and graduate school education, subsidized food and utilities, and overall, very low violent crime and gun ownership rates.

In the United States, as of 2024, nearly 14% or 47.9 million people were food insecure and 26.7 million lacked health care coverage, according to sources including the U.S. Census Bureau. In contrast, prior to 2018, Cuba’s food insecurity hovered around 2.5%, according to the USDA’s Economic Research Service. After the pandemic and Trump’s maximum pressure campaign, by 2023, the USDA Economic Research Service estimated that nearly 12.8% of Cuba’s population were food insecure. Today, as a result of Trump’s accelerated campaign against Cuba, independent groups like the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights have reported that up to 78% of Cubans are skipping meals.

A recent report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research based on World Bank data also found that the strengthening of U.S. sanctions against Cuba beginning in 2017 were likely the main cause of a huge spike in Cuba’s infant mortality rates. For decades Cuba had a lower infant mortality rate (four per 1,000 live births) than the United States (six per 1,000 live births). Since 2018, however, the report found the rate has increased, reaching 9.9 in 2025, resulting in a total of 1,800 infant deaths over a seven-year period.

While Cuba may have universal health care, with fuel reserves depleted, hospitals lack electricity for incubators and operations, and pharmacies lack medicine. Nonetheless, Cuba still compares favorably to the United States in other areas:

Housing: There are virtually no unhoused people in Cuba. The 1960 Urban Reform Law turned renters into homeowners so 85% of Cubans own their own homes and pay no property taxes or interest on their payments. After 1985, payments toward buying a home couldn’t exceed 10% of the combined household income. U.S. mortgages often exceed 38% of salaries.

Literacy: The adult literacy rate in Cuba (99.8%) is higher than the United States’ rate (97%), per the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Employment: Cuba’s unemployment rate is only 1.8% according to CIA data, compared with 4.3% in the United States.

Harms to Cubans

While the United States’ $310 billion price tag is higher, Cuba has obviously suffered a far greater blow relative to its size and resources.
Many unnamed Cuban and U.S. sources for this article mentioned a variety of hardships—the garbage piles attracting pests (one mentioned seeing a person sifting through them for food), the 20–22-hour blackouts halting water pumps, people skipping showers and meals. Ellen Rosenzweig, who lived in Cuba for 20 years and was married to a musician in the legendary Cuban band Los Van Van, noted, “So if your electricity is on at 3 a.m., you have to be up then to fill bathtubs and cook for the day.” One result of Trump’s maximum pressure campaign has been a massive exodus from Cuba of 10% of its population, mostly young professional economic refugees, with emigration continuing to rise.
Before Trump’s first presidential term, Cuban ingenuity was able to outsmart el bloqueo. The country withstood the previous oil crisis during the 1990s post-Soviet Special Period, the loss of its tourist industry during the pandemic, and the need to improvise replacement parts for aging U.S.-made transportation systems and electric grids. Yet each of these crises further exposed Cuba’s Achilles’ heel, one that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was more than happy to attack.

“All of the pieces aligned to make this obsessive desire to finally take over Cuba seem possible,” observes Medea Benjamin, author and co-founder of the anti-war organization Code Pink, in a telephone interview. In a recent article on Common Dreams responding to Castro’s indictment over the deaths of four Brothers to the Rescue operatives who were killed in 1996 when their plane was shot down over Cuba, Benjamin describes how anti-Cuban extremist groups have killed over 74 Cuban civilians and how Brothers to the Rescue specifically received warnings for “25 serious and systematic violations of Cuban airspace” prior to the downing of the plane. (Brothers to the Rescue was a Miami-based Cuban exile organization that began as a search-and-rescue group for Cuban migrants but became politically controversial due to anti-Castro activities and flights near Cuban airspace.)

“That same anti-communism has been around for decades and Miami Cubans like Marco Rubio feel they can finally accomplish their dream. This bold-faced support for the modern-day Monroe Doctrine—the ‘Donroe Doctrine’—is coming directly from Rubio,” she explains. The term is a play on Donald Trump’s name and the 1823 policy established by President James Monroe that has evolved to justify military interventions in Latin America.

Rubio is a primary driver of the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaigns. He is supported by influential anti-Castro Cuban-American political networks, including the Cuban-American lobby, the Fanjul family (a prominent Cuban-American family known for building a multi-billion-dollar sugar and real estate empire), and the late Las Vegas Sands owner Sheldon Adelson, a conservative donor whose primary cause was maintaining U.S. support for Israel.

Given our own economic woes here in the United States, a growing chorus of voices is calling for an end to this costly, immoral vendetta. After meeting with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla this spring, House Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Jonathan Jackson released a statement. “This is cruel collective punishment—effectively an economic bombing of the infrastructure of the country—that has produced permanent damage. It must stop immediately,” they wrote.

Earlier this year, House Representative James McGovern introduced H.R. 7521, the United States-Cuba Trade Act of 2026, which would lift the blockade entirely. Unfortunately, the legislation has not yet been scheduled for a vote.

“That’s a failed blockade because it hasn’t worked in 64 years,” says Zoila Benitez, the retired head of a Cuban news department. “The oil sanctions have created a humanitarian crisis and nobody should have to go through that.” Benitez emigrated to the United States in 2021 after an accident in an unlit stairwell and the sudden unavailability of medical joint replacements due to Trump’s sanctions. She misses loved ones and her beautiful apartment with marble floors that she helped build. Like many Cuban émigrés she believes Cuba needs change—including, possibly, more political parties—but rejects U.S. involvement.

Seventy-five percent of Cuban-Americans in South Florida—mostly Rubio’s and Trump’s base—also say that the blockade has not worked, a recent poll by the Cuban Research Institute found.

Florida Uber driver Ryan Stone told me, “I’m 100% for America staying in its lane instead of wasting our money. I think we should vote on it each year and it should be democratic.”

Jean, a former Colombian who is in Florida on asylum, lost his commercial trucking license thanks to an executive order Trump issued in March. “Es una tonteria—It’s a joke,” he said about the blockade dismissively. On the other hand, when I asked hotel hostess Yanet about whether or not she supported a U.S. invasion, she said in Spanish, “Invasion? I call it an intervention.”

While lifting the blockade would boost Cubans’ living standard and lay bare the Cuban government’s true mistakes, Cuba’s economy would still be saddled with its colonial legacy as a producer first of sugar and later of tourism. Unequal trade terms historically maintain formerly colonized countries as purveyors of raw materials and services, subsidizing the high standard of living in industrialized countries. It is useful to remember this uneven playing field whenever making comparisons with Cuba.

The Cuban president implied that copycat Iran assassinations and Venezuela kidnappings won’t work in Cuba, nor would an occupation. “The fact is that we have a collective leadership …there are hundreds of people who are capable of assuming that responsibility and making decisions collectively,” Díaz-Canel explained on NBC, “…a doctrine known as the War of the Entire People … every Cuban woman and every Cuban man has a mission, a purpose, a goal to defend, a place and a position to occupy in the defense.”

Cuba’s Future

Despite the hardships, more than half of the Cuban population (5.2 million out of 9.7 million) came out to celebrate the legacy of the Cuban Revolution and International Workers’ Day on May 1. Later that month, 6,230,973 people—or 80% of the country’s population over age 16—signed a petition denouncing the energy blockade and committing to defend Cuba’s sovereignty.

Recently, Mexico, China, and Russia pledged to continue trading with Cuba. The BBC reports that “the Chinese foreign ministry called on the United States to stop using ‘coercion’ and ‘threats’ against its ally, while the Kremlin said the pressure being exerted on Havana ‘borders on violence.’” China has been working with Cuba to build up its solar infrastructure. This does not look like a war that Trump and Rubio will win quickly.

Prior to 1959 Cuba was dominated by casinos, prostitution, and organized crime. Judging from his former investments, political maneuverings, and close friendships, one could assume Trump has a soft spot for casinos, ballrooms, and islands. Will the exorbitant cost of the blockade be worth returning to the same unequal status quo Cuba had under Bastita, but under the Trump brand instead?

Prior to Trump’s maximum pressure campaign, the fact that a poor, formerly colonized country could meet its citizens’ basic needs, while outperforming the United States on key measures, underscored how inexpensively the United States could follow suit. And herein may lie the real motivation of the blockade, and its most significant cost: it keeps people from making such comparisons first-hand. In other words, why is the U.S. government willing to spend $310 billion, plus the incalculable cost of a potential invasion, just to keep the U.S. public from making its own comparisons?

Margot Pepper’s memoir about her year based in Cuba during the Special Period, Through the Wall: A Year in Havana, was nominated for the 2006 American Book Award. Her work has appeared in Dollars & Sense, Common Dreams, the Utne Reader, Monthly Review, Z-net, Counterpunch, City Lights, and elsewhere and can be found at margotpepper.com.

Sources: Medea Benjamin, “The Indictment of Raul Catro: A New Low in Cuba Policy,”  Common Dreams, May 21, 2026 (commondreams.org); Kim Hjelmgaard, “Trump ramps up Cuba pressure as Nimitz carrier enters Caribbean Sea,” USA Today, May 21, 2026 (usatoday.com); Françoise Bouchet-Saulnier, “The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law,” Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders, 1998 (guide-humanitarian-law.org); David Mericle, Jacob Kitzman, Wong Gim Teck, and Shu Jian, “Embargo or Blockade?” The Cuban Experience,1998; Jack Nicas and Christiaan Triebert, “A New U.S. Blockade Is Strangling Cuba,” New York Times, February 20, 2026 (nytimes.com); Joe Courtney Press Release, “Of Course A Blockade is an Act of War,” May 19, 2026 (courtney.house.gov); Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America (Monthly Review Press, 1971); Carollee Bengelsdorf, The Problem of Democracy in Cuba (Oxford University Press, 1994); Eduardo Humberto del Río García, Cuba para principiantes/ Cuba for Beginners (Editorial Grijalbo S.A., 1983); José Luis Rodríguez and George Carriazo Moreno, Eradication of Poverty in Cuba/ Erradicación de la Pobreza en Cuba (Editorial De Ciencias Sociales,1987); Tom Phillips, “Cuba Has Run Out Of Diesel And Fuel Oil, Energy Minister Says, As Us Blockade Pushes Island To Brink,” The Guardian, May 13, 2026 (theguardian.com); Vibhu Mishra “General Assembly renews long-standing call for end to US embargo against Cuba,” UN News, October 30, 2024 (news.un.org); United Nations General Assembly, “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba,” October 11, 2023 (docs.un.org); Michelle Nichols, “Us Fails To Make Big Dent In Un Vote Calling For End To Cuba Embargo,” Reuters, October 29, 2025 (reuters.com); The Editors of ProCon. “Cuba Embargo,” Encyclopedia Britannica, February 10, 2026 (britannica.com); Steven Goldstein, “America’s Farmers Bearing Heavy Burden for U.S. Embargo Against Cuba: New Report,” AfroCubaWeb, January 28, 2002 (afrocubaweb.com); Anna Diamond, “Why We Don’t Know How Many People Are Homeless,” New York Times, February 18, 2026 (nytimes.com); Macrotrends, “U.S. Median Home Listing Price (2016-2026)” (macrotrends.net); Zillow, “Housing Data” (zillow.com/research/data); Helen Yaffe, “Defend Cuba From US Efforts to Crush It,” Jacobin, March 13, 2026 (jacobin.com); Bureau of Diplomatic Security, “Cuba 2012 Crime and Safety Report,” U.S. Department of State, March 21, 2012 (state.gov); Steven Zahniser, Lila Cardell, Yacob Abrehe Zereyesus, and Constanza Valdes, “Cuba’s deteriorating food security and its implications for US agricultural exports,” U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, October 2024 (usda.gov); Nicholas Kristof, “Why Infants May Be More Likely to Die in American Than Cuba, New York Times, January 18, 2019 (nytimes.com); Ed Augustin and Jack Nicas, “Cuban Patients Are Dying Because of US Blockade, Doctors Say,” New York Times, March 26, 2026 (nytimes.com); Economist Sinan Koont; Leni Villagomez Reeves, “Marco Rubio’s Powerful Secret Backers,” Community Alliance, April 2, 2025 (fresnoalliance.com); Dan Berman, “Sheldon Adelson-owned Las Vegas Review-Journal endorses Marco Rubio,” CNN, February 5, 2016 (cnn.com); Jonathan Jackson, “Press Release: Jayapal, Jackson Statement on Delegation to Cuba,” April 5, 2026 (jonathanjackson.house.gov); Kristen Welker Interview with Cuban President and First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, “Surrender is Not Part of the Revolutionaries’ Mindset,” Meet the Press, NBC News,  April 9, 2026 (nbc.com); Belly of the Beast, “Cuba’s Population Shrinks by 1.4 Million in Five Years,” May 30, 2025 (bellyofthebeastcuba.com); Frances Robles, “On May Day Cuba’s Communist Leaders Deliver a Defiant Tone to the U.S.,” New York Times, May 1, 2026 (nytimes.com).

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Margot Pepper

Margot Pepper has been an educator for 31 years and her work has been published by Z-Magazine, Z-net, Common Dreams, Utne Reader, Counterpunch, Monthly Review, Dollars & Sense, Prensa Latina, NACLA, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, City Lights, Hampton Brown, Rethinking Schools, El Tecolote, El Andar and elsewhere. She is the author of a book of poetry, (At This Very Moment,) a memoir about her year working in Cuba during the Special Period, (Through the Wall: A Year in Havana), and most recently a dystopian science fiction thriller, American Day Dream.