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THROUGHOUT my life, the US has tended to look upon a small Caribbean island fewer than 100 miles south of Florida as an existential menace. Donald Trump’s designation of Cuba as an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” is ridiculous, but hardly novel. The absurdity of that claim has a long history. The US has sought to asphyxiate Cuba since the 1959 revolution that replaced the dictatorship of a brutal American puppet, Fulgencio Batista, with a reformist regime. The US response has hardly wavered since the Lester Mallory memorandum of 1960, which noted that since the revolution was widely popular, the “only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship”.
Almost every US administration since then has broadly pursued that goal. The economic blockade declared during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 remains in place, occasionally loosened but often reinforced, making it the longest US sanctions regime in history. It has included the Helms-Burton Act signed into law by Bill Clinton, aimed at deterring foreign investment in Cuba. A reprieve towards the end of the Obama years, which removed Cuba from the list of terrorist-supporting nations and re-established full diplomatic ties, was reversed by Trump’s first administration and sustained until the last days of Joe Biden’s term.
The reincarnated Trump rescinded the reprieve and, since decapitating Venezuela, has harped on the theme of Cuba’s impending collapse. He has lately threatened higher tariffs against any country that supplies oil to Cuba. Venezuela had served as Cuba’s energy lifeline since the turn of the century, although the supply of fuel diminished during the Maduro years and has now halted, while Mexico stepped in last year as the main supplier.
That source too appears to have dried up, with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s halting the latest shipment, even as she decries the humanitarian consequences of choking Cuba’s energy lifeline. Is her attitude any different from that of Delcy Rodríguez, whose Venezuelan administration has also slammed the absurdity of the US accusations against Cuba, yet is unwilling to challenge the imperial decree?
Both Beijing and Moscow ostensibly have good ties with Havana, yet neither seems inclined to assist Cuba in its hour of need. Even more disconcerting, arguably, is the indifference of the Global South, despite Cuba’s proud record over the decades of selflessly assisting beleaguered nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America. As Nelson Mandela acknowledged, South African apartheid might have persisted much longer had not Cuba come to newly independent Angola’s aid in resisting an onslaught engineered by Pretoria.
The socialist island’s old friends are running scared.
More frequently, Cuba’s assistance was medical rather than military, exemplified by the extraordinary relief mission following the 2005 earthquake in AJK. It involved more than 2,000 doctors, nurses and paramedics who set up 32 field hospitals and two relief camps, and brought in tonnes of medical equipment and medicines. The medical teams included many women, enabling them to help female patients to whom the mainly male doctors of Western aid agencies were denied access. It’s said that some patients, until then unaware of Cuba’s existence, asked about their benefactors’ chieftain and were impressed by the length of Fidel Castro’s beard. Distinctive as it may have been, Castro’s facial hair was less relevant than his relentless dedication to internationalism. A couple of months before the earthquake, Cuba had offered a helping hand following Hurricane Katrina, but the Bush administration said no, while coping abysmally with its aftermath.
Year after year, a UN General Assembly resolution almost unanimously decries the US blockade against Cuba, in place since 1962. It has never made much difference. The irony is that Cuba is being pushed into an impossible corner when it no longer serves as the socialist exemplar that the US dreaded nearly 70 years ago. One can only empathise with the Cubans desperate for change and wary of the post-Castro government’s unimpressive policies. The exodus that has created a demographical problem is understandable. What the future might hold cannot be foreseen, but the return of US hegemony can’t resolve Cuba’s woes.
Revolutionary Cuba has survived a vast number of potential catastrophes since the early 1960s. It will be a tragedy if, under Trumpian imperialism, it fails to mark the birth centenary of its founding father in August. If Cuba is bullied into going the same way as Venezuela, the loss for Latin America’s floundering self-esteem will equally be reflected on the global scoreboard. The impending travesty will diminish us all.
Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2026
