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Cuba Is Not Afraid

Vijay Prashad

On 13 March 2026, President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez gave a press conference in Havana, Cuba. The country has been wracked by a worsening fuel and electricity crisis produced by the long-standing illegal U.S. blockade, which the Trump administration tightened further in early 2026 by effectively cutting off oil shipments to the island. On 29 January, Trump issued an executive order filled with the bluster of falsehoods—including the claim that Cuba ‘welcomes transnational terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas’—and threatened tariffs against any country that tried to send oil to Cuba.

Cuba produces about a 40% of the fuel it needs and imports the rest—mostly from Mexico and Venezuela. After the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela was forced to stop shipments to Cuba, while Mexico halted shipments under the threat of U.S. tariffs. Cuba has not received oil since the first week of January. In early February, Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga said that the Cuban government would direct the remaining fuel to essential services—education, healthcare, and the supply of water and food. It was in this context that Díaz-Canel announced that Cuba and the United States had begun ‘a very sensitive process’ of talks aimed at addressing bilateral problems and taking ‘concrete actions for the benefit of the people of both countries’.

A few days before the press conference, a delegation from the International Peoples’ Assembly met with Díaz-Canel, who told us that the situation in Cuba is very difficult but that his government is doing everything it can to alleviate the hardship faced by the Cuban people. At the same time, he said, the revolution would not abandon its socialist principles of sovereignty and dignity. The quiet conviction with which Díaz-Canel spoke comforted us, and his words reflected what we heard from the people we spoke to across Havana (we could not travel beyond the capital because of the fuel crisis created by the oil blockade).

Trump’s latest assault on Cuba is a continuation of the illegal U.S. blockade that began on 7 February 1962, when U.S. President John F. Kennedy signed Proclamation 3447 under Section 620(a) of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, and was later consolidated in July 1963 under the authority of the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act. Kennedy’s move expanded the earlier trade restrictions imposed in 1960 and transformed them into a comprehensive ban on nearly all commercial and financial relations between the United States and Cuba. The blockade’s extraterritorial reach deepened over time, especially after 1991: the 1992 Torricelli Act barred foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba and imposed a 180-day restriction on vessels involved in trade with the island, and the 1996 Helms-Burton Act further—and illegally—extended the blockade’s reach to third countries and foreign companies.

The policy, then as now, is explicitly designed to weaken a Cuba that had sought to chart a sovereign path out of subordination, first to Europe and then, after 1898, to the United States. The United States used the blockade to punish Cuba for its defiance of U.S. control and for the example that Cuba had begun to represent for other countries of the Third World. From the outset, the blockade’s intent went beyond diplomacy: internal U.S. government documents reveal a strategy explicitly aimed at generating ‘economic dissatisfaction and hardship’ in Cuba to provoke political change. The blockade grew more complex and punitive over time. Rather than easing pressure during Cuba’s Special Period, which followed the fall of the Soviet Union when the island had lost its principal trading partner, the United States tightened its policy still further. Such extraterritorial enforcement directly conflicts with international trade norms and the sovereign rights of other states.

The U.S. blockade of Cuba is widely accepted to be illegal under international law because it violates core principles of state sovereignty, non-intervention, and the right of other states to engage in lawful trade. These principles are enshrined in the United Nations system and, most importantly, in the 1945 Charter of the United Nations, which affirms the sovereign equality of states, prohibits the threat or use of force against their territorial integrity or political independence, and forbids intervention in matters essentially within their domestic jurisdiction. For the sake of clarity, it is worth referring to the main legal principles and instruments that the United States has flouted since 1962:

• The 1945 Charter of the United Nations Articles 2(1), 2(4), and 2(7) affirm state sovereignty, prohibit the threat or use of force against territorial integrity or political independence, and forbid interference in domestic affairs.
• The 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-Operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations declares that no state may use economic, political, or any other measures to coerce another government in order to subordinate the exercise of its sovereign rights.
• The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted in 1966 and entered into force in 1976) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (adopted in 1966 and entered into force in 1976) recognise the right of peoples to self-determination, including control over their economic systems.

Apart from these explicit treaties in the United Nations system, there is also an older tradition of customary international law that protects freedom of international trade and that prohibits extraterritorial jurisdiction over third states. The blockade violates the principles of sovereign equality by attempting to dictate Cuba’s internal political and economic system. Its explicit intent to cause economic hardship constitutes unlawful intervention and coercion. The extraterritorial enforcement of U.S. sanctions unlawfully interferes with the sovereign rights of third countries and their nationals. The absence of any United Nations Security Council authorisation further underscores the unilateral and coercive character of the blockade.

Every year since 1992 (except for 2020 when Covid prevented a vote), the United Nations General Assembly has overwhelmingly voted to condemn the blockade of Cuba, describing it as contrary to international law and the UN Charter. These resolutions emphasise that the policy violates Cuba’s right to self-determination and obstructs normal economic relations between states.

While General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, their consistency and near-universal support demonstrate a strong international consensus on the illegality of the measure. When the General Assembly held its most recent vote in October 2025, 165 out of 193 member states voted to end the blockade. Among them were some of the world’s most populous countries, such as Brazil, China, Nigeria, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan. Taken together, the countries that voted in favour represent approximately 92% of the world’s population. By any measure, the bulk of the world’s peoples oppose this illegal blockade.

A nurse at the Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery in Havana told me that it takes her over two hours to get to work from her home, but that she sees this inconvenience as part of her mission within the Cuban Revolution. It made me want to cry to hear the staff at the hospital talk about their commitment to their patients and to the Cuban revolutionary process. Because of the oil blockade and the resulting power fluctuations, the surgeons and nurses worry about performing delicate brain surgery. Their patients—some suffering from epilepsy or brain tumours—simply must wait.

Dr. Orestes López Piloto, the director of the hospital, walks me through the main ward. ‘I come from the southern part of Oriente [in eastern Cuba]. My family are workers and farmers, Black people who worked the soil’, he told me. ‘I am a doctor and a surgeon because of the revolution. And because of it, I am at one of the main medical centres of the country’. He looked directly into my eyes and said, ‘There are people who are against the revolution. But there are many more of us who are for it. And we are not afraid’.

[Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism and (with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power. Courtesy: Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, an international, movement-driven institution focused on stimulating intellectual debate that serves people’s aspirations.]

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Democracy Under Siege: Popular Participation and Socialist Renewal in Cuba in a Time of Crisis

Isaac Saney and James Count Early

Amid one of the most severe economic moments since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, and under the weight of a suffocating, ever-expanding U.S. imperial siege, Cuba is attempting something that remains almost unthinkable in the so-called advanced capitalist democracies: it is consciously and systematically expanding and deepening citizen involvement in deciding the country’s economic and political future. While political systems in wealthy Western nations increasingly marginalize working populations from meaningful participation in economic decision-making, Cuba insists that resolving the current crisis must be a collective, participatory, and profoundly democratic undertaking.

Cuban President Díaz-Canel frames the political direction by emphasizing “that democracy is not an abstract concept, but a daily practice that is strengthened with the active participation of all and for the good of all, with transparency in management and with shared responsibility.” Progressives and socialists internationally should therefore pay careful attention to the debates over internal governance unfolding in Cuba—debates that involve Cuban citizens, the citizen members of the Communist Party of Cuba, and the country’s elected institutions of popular power. These discussions focus on how best to reorganize and mobilize Cuba’s human and material resources in the face of extraordinary external pressures, including adjustments in party structures, government administration, and the deployment of national capacities.

Such deliberations are not new. They are part of a long-standing and evolving tradition in Cuban political culture, in which major domestic policy shifts are preceded by extensive public discussion and institutional debate. Yet critics of Cuban socialism—and even some rigid sectors of the international left—are likely to misinterpret these developments. Many will hastily claim that the Cuban government is capitulating to pressure from the administration of Donald Trump and the aggressive anti-Cuba policies associated with figures such as Marco Rubio. Such claims ignore the reality that the current policy discussions are rooted in Cuba’s own internal political processes and reflect an ongoing effort to expand and deepen democratic participation in national decision-making, particularly at provincial and municipal levels of citizen representation.

A National Program for Economic Recovery

On October 26, 2025, the Cuban government released a comprehensive ninety-two-page programmatic document outlining a far-reaching roadmap for confronting the country’s current economic challenges. This blueprint articulates a coordinated effort built around ten general objectives, 106 specific objectives, 342 concrete actions, and 264 indicators and targets—a straightforward internal policy making and policy implementation review resulting in a level of detail that underscores both the gravity of the issues of governance and economic stability that Cubans are tackling, and the seriousness of the proposed response.

The overarching goal is clear: to advance the gradual recovery of the economy, improve state management, and overcome the complex and multifaceted crisis facing the nation—and to do so through more timely and efficient direct citizen governance. The current crisis has been exacerbated by external pressures, structural vulnerabilities, the intensification of the U.S. blockade, and brutal economic warfare designed to overthrow the Cuban government. In response to internal imperatives and external threats, the Cuban government, through improved statecraft, seeks to mobilize institutions, enterprises, territorial bodies, and the general population in a unified effort to stabilize and revitalize the country’s economic life. Far from treating the population as passive spectators to centralized technocratic decision-making, Cuba has embarked on an expansive national process of consultation, debate, and popular input tied to the Government Program to correct distortions and revitalize the economy.

Contrary to propaganda from anti–Cuban government critics, the U.S.-legislated economic war against the people of Cuba and their government does not deter the Cuban government from serious self-evaluation. Like his predecessors, President Díaz-Canel has been clear and consistent with the public, the government, and Communist Party that

We can’t look at the road travelled without questioning our shadows. We suffer greatly from the consequences of formalism and improvisation that very often distorts and thwarts strategic planning. And centralism still slows us down too much, that is, the excess of centralization that curbs the creative initiative of individuals, collectives, and municipalities. To recognize it is not to weaken ourselves; it is to strengthen ourselves. The real revolution is the one that lives criticizing itself so as not to grow old.

The program—structured around ten general objectives and 106 interconnected goals—has become the framework through which the state seeks to address the crisis with the people, not over their heads.

Popular Consultation as Governance

During a session of the Council of State, chaired by Esteban Lazo Hernández and attended by President Miguel Díaz Canel and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz, Cuba’s leadership underscored the centrality of a nationwide consultation process held between November 15 and December 30. Díaz-Canel described the exercise as a “participatory and contributory process of collective construction.” Its purpose is not only to strengthen the Government Program through the population’s proposals but also to deepen public understanding of the economic challenges and mobilize society for their resolution.

This is not democracy understood merely as periodic elections or focus-grouped political messaging. It is democracy as substantive, critical engagement—a process through which citizens deliberate, critique, and contribute to the shaping of national policy. In a context defined by extreme scarcity, intensified blockade pressure, and deep structural constraints, Cuba insists that the people must remain protagonists of the country’s political policy making and economic reconstruction.

By contrast, in Western capitalist societies—whose political systems claim democratic superiority—working people are largely excluded from meaningful economic decision-making. Policies shaping austerity, taxation, labour markets, monetary policy, and social programs are routinely determined by technocrats, corporate executives, and unaccountable financial institutions. Elections change little; citizens are treated as consumers of political brands rather than participants in shaping a collective future. The result is widespread alienation and cynicism. Cuba’s socialist approach stands as a profound rebuke to this corporate capitalist oligarch-led model, now under severe critique in the United States.

Crisis Management Through Collective Input

Central to Cuba’s strategy is the recognition that economic stabilization cannot be imposed from above. Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Pérez Oliva Fraga emphasized that the Program operates through continuous monitoring, debate, and public discussion. This reflects the realities of Cuba’s economic situation. As a small and trade-dependent economy, the country faces enormous distortions caused by the U.S. blockade and by its forced exclusion from the international financial system. The economic war’s intensification—including Cuba’s placement on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism—severely obstructs banking operations, investment flows, and basic trade.

Given these hostile conditions, the Program seeks to strengthen internal capacities: expanding domestic food production, incentivizing national industry, reducing import dependency, and fostering the development and autonomy of socialist enterprises and territorial governments. The aim is not merely economic adjustment but the transformation of the economic system in ways that preserve social equity and socialist principles.

Stabilization Without Sacrificing the People

Minister of Economy and Planning Joaquín Alonso Vázquez has acknowledged that while progress has been made in reducing the fiscal deficit, it remains high and continues to generate inflationary pressures. Crucially, the Cuban leadership insists that stabilization must occur “without anyone being left behind.” Workers, pensioners, and vulnerable populations must not bear the cost of adjustment. This approach contrasts sharply with the neoliberal practices common in capitalist economies, where stabilization policies—often framed as fiscal discipline—frequently translate into austerity measures imposed on the poor and working class.

Despite enormous constraints, Cuba has maintained a surplus in the current account of the state budget while containing monetary issuance. At the same time, the government is strengthening the National Tax Administration Office, combating price violations—over one million have been detected—and restructuring foreign currency management. These measures aim not at dismantling social protections but at restoring economic order while safeguarding the social fabric.

Revitalizing the Socialist Enterprise

A central pillar of the Program is the revitalization of the socialist state enterprise and the empowerment of territorial governments as drivers of development. Cuba must expand production in sectors such as sugar, honey, charcoal, and agricultural goods—areas that remain underutilized despite their potential. Import substitution is therefore not a narrow economic dogma but a strategic priority aimed at preserving scarce foreign currency and strengthening national sovereignty.

To accomplish this, enterprises must achieve greater autonomy and responsiveness within a stable macroeconomic framework. The goal is to create conditions where economic actors can function effectively within a regulated exchange market and improved access to wholesale inputs—while maintaining the socialist commitment to equity and universal rights.

Social Protection and Revolutionary Governance

Even amid crisis, Cuba continues to prioritize social justice. Deputy Prime Minister Eduardo Martínez Díaz highlighted that more than thirty social programs across thirteen major policy areas are currently being implemented nationwide. These initiatives strengthen healthcare, education, and the implementation of the Code for Children, Adolescents, and Youth. At the grassroots level, cadres play a vital role in explaining policies, organizing debate, and mobilizing communities. Far from the stereotype of a rigid bureaucratic state, this reflects a model of socialist democracy grounded in political education, communication, and collective responsibility. As Jorge Luis Broche Lorenzo has emphasized, the Government Program functions as a tactical instrument aligned with Cuba’s long-term socialist model. Its success depends on the synergy between economic policy and political mobilization.

Resilience and Revolutionary Continuity

This context is essential for understanding recent remarks by President Miguel Díaz Canel, who invoked the enduring spirit of resistance that has defined Cuba since 1959. Addressing national institutions, he delivered a message that resonated widely across the country: “¡La rendición nunca ha sido alternativa!”: “Surrender has never been an option!”

The phrase captures a central theme of Cuban political culture: resilience in the face of decades of economic warfare, diplomatic hostility, and the ongoing U.S. blockade. Díaz-Canel described the Cuban people as “unbreakable,” emphasizing their collective capacity to confront immense hardship. At the same time, he insisted that resilience cannot mean stagnation. The debates unfolding within Cuban institutions, he explained, are marked not by pessimism but by frank evaluation and proposals for transformation: “There was no pessimism,” he noted, “only honest assessments and proposals for change.”

Central to this process is renewed civic engagement. Díaz-Canel has repeatedly called on citizens to remain actively involved in shaping the country’s future. “Only together can we overcome these challenges and build a prosperous and just nation,” he stated—an appeal consistent with the principles of socialist democracy embedded in the Constitution of Cuba.

Democracy Under Pressure

In this sense, the current debates reflect a broader effort to decentralize decision-making, strengthen grassroots participation, and reinvigorate national institutions. Cuba’s attempt to confront its economic crisis through mass consultation and participatory governance offers a powerful lesson in a world increasingly dominated by oligarchic capitalism. Under extraordinary external pressure—blockade, sanctions, financial exclusion, and global inequality—Cuba chooses not to contract democracy but to expand it.

This is not an aberration or a temporary crisis response. It is a defining feature of the revolutionary project. The nationwide debates surrounding the 2019 Constitution and the recent Family Code stand among the most extensive democratic consultations in the contemporary world. Earlier precedents—most notably the Workers’ Parliaments of 1994, when millions of workers met in tens of thousands of assemblies during the Special Period—demonstrate the depth of this tradition.

Time and again, Cuba has turned to its people as the ultimate source of legitimacy, creativity, and political strength. In contrast, the advanced capitalist states—wealthy and powerful yet plagued by political alienation—systematically exclude their populations from meaningful participation in economic governance. Their crisis is not scarcity but democracy itself: a crisis of representation, disconnection, and oligarchic domination.

Cuba, facing far greater obstacles, insists on another path. It is a path where the people, through struggle, debate, and collective will, chart the course of their society. A path where socialism is not merely an economic system but a form of popular power—and where even under siege, the people remain the authors and protagonists of their nation’s future.

[Isaac Saney is a Black Studies and Cuba specialist at Dalhousie University and coordinator of the Black and African Diaspora Studies program. He is the author of several books, including Cuba, Africa and Apartheid’s End: Africa’s Children Return!. James Count Early is former Smithsonian Institution Assistant Secretary for Education and Public Service and Director of the Cultural Heritage Policy Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. His scholarship encompasses Afro-Latin politics, history, and cultural democracy. Courtesy: MR Online, a forum for collaboration and communication between radical activists, writers, and scholars around the world, started by Monthly Review, the famed socialist magazine published from New York.]

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What I Saw in Cuba Was Resilience

Gerardo Delgado

28 March 2026: I traveled to Cuba this month. As a Cuban American, that sentence carries the weight of longing born of an estrangement from my roots. For much of my life, Cuba existed as a distant story, a place I knew only through descriptions from my father.

I was there as part of an international solidarity convoy; over 500 representatives from more than 30 countries, united by a simple conviction: no country has the right to strangle another simply because it chose a different path. I cannot stand by while the island of my family’s heritage is suffocated.

What I witnessed over those days was not the Cuba of Western propaganda. It was a country enduring a 66-year siege, and a people who, against all odds, continue to build, create, and care for one another.

A Public Health System Under Siege

One of the most profound visits was to a neighborhood polyclinic in Havana. These clinics are the backbone of Cuba’s public health system. Doctors live on the second floor, above where they work. They know every patient in their community by name. They treat physical and psychological health alike, and they embody a model of care that prioritizes people over profit.

But the doctors I met face heartbreaking constraints. They are highly trained professionals who know exactly what their patients need, and they know those treatments exist. Due to the U.S. embargo, they cannot access them. Imagine living every day with the skill to heal and being blocked by a political and economic siege.

We brought what we could: 6,300 pounds of medical supplies delivered by our delegation, including neonatal equipment, analgesics, catheters, and other critical materials, valued at $433,000 and more still in unquantifiable amounts stuffed into carry-on and personal bags, sacrificing space for our own clothing and toiletries. Cuban doctors told us about nights when the power goes out, and medical students rush to respirators, manually pumping air for hours until electricity is restored. They save lives with their bare hands.

Community and Creativity in the Face of Scarcity

Everywhere we went, I saw people organizing to survive. In a central Havana neighborhood, we helped refurbish a crumbling playground. We brought paint and new swings. A local man who maintains the park offered to take the swings down each night so they wouldn’t be taken, then put them back up each morning for the children. That kind of mutual care was everywhere.

We met an artist named Lázaro, who collects garbage and old newspapers to create recycled art. He teaches neighborhood kids to do the same. His studio walls are covered in vibrant works that double as expressions of resistance and creativity.

On another day, we set up a table outside Lázaro’s studio with construction paper, markers, and glue. Children from the neighborhood gathered to write letters to pen pals in Singapore. I translated letters from English to Spanish, helping each child respond in Spanish and illustrate their replies. Parents played drums and danced while the kids painted and wrote. It was a profound moment of cross-border connection—kids building relationships through art and translation, across continents, across the blockade.

For Cuban Americans, there is something like a spiritual cost that is paid for quietly going along with the status quo in the face of the many injustices we have grown up with for decades, which seem to us to have intensified in these recent years. But the children I saw in Havana had their spirit intact.

The Human Cost of the Embargo

The blockade is not an abstraction. Poverty is real. I gave what I could, but as individuals, we cannot meet that scale of need brought upon by a systemic crisis created by U.S. policy.

Rolling blackouts on the island are the result of a strategy of siege warfare intensified in January. Cuba has gone months without fuel imports due to sanctions and naval pressure aimed at stopping oil shipments to the island. Power plants cannot run consistently. Hospitals cannot perform necessary surgeries. Water pumping infrastructure fails. This is not a natural disaster. It is man-made violence; it is a silent war.

And yet, the Cuban people do not wait for rescue. They organize. They adapt. They invent.

Solidarity and a Call to Action

As a Cuban American, I have heard all my life that Cuba is a country ruled by capricious autocrats. That the Cuban people are waiting to be liberated. That their strangulation is meant to help them. But standing on that island, talking to doctors and artists and children and families, I saw something else entirely. I saw a people who are already free—free to define their own destiny, even under the weight of a siege designed to break them.

Cuba is open to dialogue and investment with respect for its sovereignty. But the U.S. continues to enforce a policy that even much of the world condemns. Year after year, the United Nations General Assembly votes overwhelmingly to end the embargo. Year after year, the U.S. ignores it.

I came back with a deeper sense of what solidarity looks like: showing up, listening, sharing what we can, and staying connected to the work. But solidarity cannot end after a single delegation. We need to break the siege. We need to end this decades-long economic warfare.

Cubans have a right to self-governance. They have a right to medicine, to electricity, to water, to dignity. My father chose to leave Cuba in the face of poverty brought on by a cruel sanctions regime. I chose to return for the same reason.

Let Cuba live.

[Gerardo Delgado is a Cuban-American educator in Miami, Florida. Working with the Miami Coalition to End the U.S. Blockade of Cuba. He recently was a delegate on CODEPINK’s delegation to Cuba as part of the Nuestra América Convoy. Courtesy: Countercurrents.org, an India-based news, views and analysis website, that describes itself as non-partisan and taking “the Side of the People!” It is edited by Binu Mathew.]

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Cuba Will Survive: A Diary

Vijay Prashad

For Paki Wieland (1944-2026), who fought the cruelty of US imperialism all her adult life.

The morning of my departure from José Martí Airport, named after the father of the nation, I hugged everybody: the woman who checked me in, the man who stamped my passport, the ground staff. I had hugged all my friends tightly the previous day, my tears fighting for the right to stream down my face. It felt as though, through these hugs, I wanted to somehow transmit my trepidation about what could possibly happen to Cuba, the Cubans, the Cuban Revolution – all of it – because of the madness of Donald Trump.

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What has the world become? It is as if billions of people have become bystanders of the atrocities imposed by the United States and Israel: the genocide of the Palestinian people, the kidnapping of the Venezuelan president, the pummelling of Iran without cause, and of course, the attempt to asphyxiate Cuba. The decadent brutality of the US government, sharpened by the foolhardiness of Trump, is unpredictable and dangerous. No one can accurately say what comes next. Trump seems trapped in Iran, where he did not anticipate the political wisdom of the Iranians in refusing a ceasefire now, only for the US and Israel to rearm and destroy their cities with greater ferocity in a week. Trump cannot seem to bring the war in Ukraine or the genocide against the Palestinians to a halt. Trump’s ally, Israel, has once again widened its war to Lebanon and thus threatens to shake up the streets of the Arab world, where there is already disquiet at their utterly pliant governments. Will he strike Cuba next, thinking it will be a quick victory?

It is hard for me to describe the impact of Trump’s cruel Oil Embargo to Cuba. There has been no shipment of refined oil to Cuba since early December 2025. This means that every part of modern life has been utterly disrupted. The roads of Havana are quiet because there is simply not enough fuel for cars and buses to take people around. Schools and hospitals—the temples of revolutionary Cuba—struggle to maintain basic services. Farmers struggle to bring food into the cities, and medicines are expensive, if they are available. Imagine being a patient who needs to have neurosurgery, with doctors simply unwilling to risk putting a probe into your brain amid electricity fluctuations and rolling blackouts. This was the starkest example of the dangers of the Trump Oil Blockade that I heard during my time in Havana. As I walked around the Malecon, I saw a few horse-drawn carts go by. It is almost as if the yanqui wants to punish the Cuban Revolution and thrust ten million Cuban citizens into the Iron Age.

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I came to Cuba as part of a delegation of solidarity from the International Peoples Assembly, a platform of hundreds of organizations from around the world that are trying to reestablish movement-to-movement internationalism. Our delegation was led by João Pedro Stedile (national direction of the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement), and included Fred M’membe (President of the Socialist Party of Zambia and the opposition’s candidate for president this year), Brian Becker (one of the leaders of the Party for Socialism and Liberation in the United States), Manolo De Los Santos (director of The People’s Forum), Giuliano Granato (one of the leaders of Potere al Popolo from Italy) as well as Manuel Bertoldi and Laura Capote (coordinators of the ALBA Movements). We visited many places, including the Latin American School of Medicine, the Institute of Neurology, the Martin Luther King Centre and Casa De Las Americas. We met with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and the President of Cuba, as well as countless ordinary Cubans. We went to the main cemetery in Havana to pay homage to the thirty-two Cubans who lost their life defending Venezuelan sovereignty, and we walked around the city of Havana to meet people who were going about their everyday lives.

During one of the conversations, a friend asked how I found Cuba, a place I have visited countless times over the past thirty years. I said that I found the situation difficult but that the people seemed irrepressible. My friend was clear: the prevailing sensibility in the country was that the Cubans would fight to the very end to defend their right to a future and their refusal to return to 1958, the year before the Revolution.

During the early years of the Revolution, Fidel Castro made it clear that the urgency was to solve the people’s immediate needs and problems. This meant that the Cuban Revolution placed its emphasis on ending hunger and poverty, illiteracy and ill health, as well as providing housing and cultural spaces. To see the deterioration of life because of the harsh, nearly seventy-year Embargo and the new Oil Blockade is heartbreaking. The priority remains to ensure that every Cuban can live a life of dignity. This was the message as well from the President of Cuba, Miguel Diaz Canel, a man of great humility: we will resist, he said, but we will not permit the Revolution to squander its gains and its emphasis on the well-being of our people.

Sitting on a rocking chair beside my friend Abel Prieto, a former Minister of Culture, in Casa De Las Americas, was a tonic. As usual, Abel, my fellow Marxist-Lennonist (!), made me laugh aloud and at the same time feel sorrow. His comments ranged from an assessment of Trump (with “madness” being the word most often used) to his sense of the vitality of Cuban reality (the remarkable crowds that stood in pouring rain to pay homage to the remains of the Cubans killed by the US forces in Venezuela on 3 January). I felt comforted by his balance between humor and clarity, Abel’s literary sensibility in control of the fast-moving situation.

I accepted Abel’s view that perhaps the United States in its current form is a gigantic mistake– the arrogance of Trump a reflection of something inherent in the extreme idealism that the United States and its administrations know better than anyone else. They believe they know better what should be done to the Palestinians, the Venezuelans, the Iranians, and the Cubans. In the name of “democracy,” the democratic rights and existential rights of the people in these darker nations are utterly absorbed by the US President—the holder of preponderant power. It is an ugly vision but a real one, a reality that rips sensitive people around the world away from their own desire to shape a reality that is not so hideous. A third of the people killed in Iran by the United States and Israel are children, and the children of Palestine, whose names we honor, will never become adults.

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On my last day, I saw a group of Cuban schoolchildren playing in a park, dressed in their school uniforms, their revolutionary scarves around their necks. They were chirping with laughter and chatter. I watched them from across the road playing a game, supervised by two smiling teachers, with some cones on the ground– a game that required them to weave between them. These children must have been about five or six, boys and girls who played in a cocoon of great happiness. I sent them a virtual hug. Be safe children. Always. Hug Cuba for me every day.

[Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism and (with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power. Courtesy: CounterPunch, an online magazine based in the United States that covers politics in a manner its editors describe as “muckraking with a radical attitude”. It is edited by Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank.]

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‘Cuba Is Not Alone’: Inspiring Days of Solidarity in Havana

Resumen Latinoamericano

Mar 24, 2026: As the Trump Administration ratchets up its threats of war and economic strangulation on Cuba the international Nuestra América Convoy has arrived in Cuba. The convoy unites more than 600 solidarity activists from 38 nations, representing over 140 social, political, and cultural organizations across nearly every continent. Participants include parliamentarians, judges, ambassadors, intellectuals, trade unionists, and community leaders committed to justice and sovereignty.

The international humanitarian mission converged in the capital to delivering essential supplies and to reaffirm global support for the island amid intensified U.S. economic pressure and threats of invasion.

The solidarity groups were greeted personally by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez. at the welcoming ceremony held at the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), where the group handed over significant donations of food, medicines, hygiene products, medical equipment, and energy-related items like solar panels. These contributions aim to alleviate hardships caused by the long-standing U.S. blockade.

At the welcome Díaz-Canel described the blockade as an “economic and energy asphyxiation project” targeting the Cuban people. He expressed profound gratitude for the convoy’s courage and self-financed efforts, noting that participants covered their own travel and stay expenses to maximize aid delivery.

David Adler, coordinator of the Progressive International and a key organizer, highlighted the mission’s scale. He emphasized that the convoy represents millions worldwide who reject collective punishment and demand an end to coercive unilateral measures.

Nuestra América Convoy Strengthens Global Resistance Network

The initiative, initially conceived as a maritime flotilla inspired by other humanitarian efforts, expanded rapidly into a multi-modal global convoy. Aid arrived by air from Europe and Latin America, with charter flights coming from the U.S. and sea components following from Mexico.

Three vessels—the Granma 2.0 from Puerto Progreso, Yucatán, and two sailboats from Isla Mujeres—are en route, carrying additional tons of supplies. This Latin American contribution underscores regional unity against external aggression.

Participants stressed that Cuba’s challenges—blackouts, shortages, and infrastructure strain—stem largely from tightened sanctions and financial restrictions. The convoy’s direct aid bypasses these barriers, demonstrating practical internationalism.

Organizers declared March 21 an “International Day of Solidarity with Cuba”, resulting in coordinated actions worldwide, including protests at U.S. embassies. The effort builds on prior mobilizations and signals international sustained pressure for policy change.

Geopolitical and Regional Implications

The Nuestra América Convoy reflects deepening Global South solidarity in response to unilateral coercive measures. In Latin America and the Caribbean, it reinforces CELAC principles of non-interference and regional self-determination, countering attempts to isolate progressive governments.

Globally, the mission challenges the normalization of economic blockades as foreign policy tools, highlighting their humanitarian costs and questioning their legality under international law. It amplifies calls in forums like the UN General Assembly—where annual resolutions condemn the U.S. embargo—for multilateral respect of sovereignty.

The convoy’s convergence in Havana strengthens networks among progressive movements, trade unions, and civil society, potentially influencing future coordinated actions on issues like debt relief, climate justice, and anti-imperialist resistance. For Cuba, it bolsters resilience and morale amid ongoing crisis

Message of Brotherhood and Continued Commitment

The welcoming ceremony featured expressions of mutual respect and shared struggle. Díaz-Canel reiterated Cuba’s readiness to collaborate on common causes, from health cooperation to sustainable development.

Activists reaffirmed their pledge to continue advocacy until the blockade ends. Many highlighted personal connections—family ties, cultural affinities, or admiration for Cuba’s achievements in education and medicine despite adversity.

As additional delegations arrive and aid distribution begins, the Nuestra América Convoy stands as a powerful symbol of people-to-people diplomacy. It demonstrates that solidarity transcends borders, offering tangible relief while pressing for systemic change in international relations.

In a world marked by polarization and power asymmetries, such initiatives remind us that collective action rooted in justice can challenge dominant narratives and support nations defending their right to self-determination.

[Courtesy: Resumen Latinoamericano, a newsletter whose focus is news and analysis coming primarily from Latin America by writers, researchers, and activists living there.]

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A Continental Call from Africa: Standing with Cuba Against Imperialist Aggression

Nicholas Mwangi

Across the African continent, progressive movements, grassroots organizations, and Pan-African networks are rallying in renewed solidarity with Cuba at a moment of deepening crisis. While global media narratives often reduce Cuba’s situation to internal failure (a narrative activists and many Cubans claim is imperialist propaganda), African movements are advancing solidarity rooted in history and shared struggle. International solidarity with the people of Cuba is rising, with caravans of medicines and food supplies being mobilized to support the island in the face of the ongoing siege.

Cuba today faces severe shortages of fuel, energy, and essential goods. These hardships are real and deeply felt. They are the direct outcome of a prolonged economic war, by the United States’ decades-long embargo, now intensified into new levels of inhumanity.

Since the victory of the Cuban Revolution, Cuba has stood as a defiant example of resistance to imperial domination. Its continued commitment to a socialist path, despite immense external pressure, has made it both a symbol of sovereignty and a target of sustained aggression.

Cuba and Africa: A history of shared struggle

Cuba, a nation of roughly 11 million people, has played an outsized role in supporting liberation struggles across the Global South. Its contributions have never been symbolic alone; they have been material, strategic, decisive, and often made at great sacrifice.

From the early years of African independence, Cuba provided weapons, training, and political support to liberation movements. Its role in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau was particularly significant. In Angola, over 300,000 Cubans fought alongside African liberation movements against apartheid South African aggression, contributing to decisive victories, such as the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale. This turning point weakened apartheid South Africa militarily and politically, accelerating the independence of Namibia and contributing to the eventual collapse of apartheid.

A continental call

In a statement (published below) endorsed by multiple organizations, Pan-Africanism Today has articulated a clear and uncompromising position of solidarity from Africa.

The statement situates Cuba’s crisis within the global context of intensifying imperialism:

“We write to you at this crucial moment in history, characterized by the increasing barbarism of United States imperialism and the equally growing anti-imperialist resistance of the peoples of the world. We write not only to offer words of comfort, but to reaffirm active solidarity and internationalism forged through decades of shared struggle against a common enemy.”

Linking Cuba’s situation to global struggles from Palestine to Iran, the statement puts it clearly the blockade is not an isolated policy but part of a wider system that has “abandoned all pretence of legality, morality, and human decency.”

And, “a persistent act of war against an entire people … one of the gravest ongoing crimes against humanity in the modern era.”

Recent escalations, including new measures under US policy, have intensified this reality, particularly through restrictions affecting fuel supplies, with devastating implications for hospitals, food systems, and daily life.

Internationalism vs. imperialism

African movements contrast Cuba’s global role with that of imperial powers. Where dominant states deploy sanctions and military force, Cuba has historically deployed doctors, teachers, and technical support.

From sending medical brigades across Africa to training thousands of African students in medicine, Cuba has embodied a form of internationalism rooted in solidarity rather than extraction.

As the statement affirms: “You have not lectured us; you have shown us.”

This distinction is central. Cuba’s internationalism is not charity; it has been a political commitment grounded in a shared struggle against domination.

Solidarity is our responsibility

For African progressives, supporting Cuba is not about gratitude, it is about political responsibility in the face of a common enemy.

Cuba’s experience stands as living proof that another world is not only imaginable, but possible. As the statement concludes, “The task now, as African progressives insist, is to fight to make that world a reality. We commit ourselves to doing precisely that: building the organized power of workers, peasants, women, and youth; deepening the anti-imperialist consciousness of our peoples; and forging the continental and international unity in action. This can break the chains of capitalism and imperialism – our ability to work together and construct the socialist world that the people of Cuba have dared to demonstrate is necessary. A world for the many, built by the many!”

Pan Africanism Today Letter Expressing Solidarity with the Heroic People of Cuba

Dear Comrades,

The Pan Africanism Today Secretariat, together with all progressive people’s movements and organisations across Africa, declare our unwavering solidarity with the heroic people of Cuba. We write to you at this crucial moment in history, characterised by the increasing barbarism of United States imperialism and the equally growing anti-imperialist resistance of the peoples of the world. We write not only to offer words of comfort, but to reaffirm active solidarity and internationalism forged through decades of shared struggle against a common enemy.

The world is witnessing, in stark and undeniable terms, the true character of the United States ruling class. From the genocide of the Palestinian people — carried out with weapons, financing, and unconditional political cover provided by Washington — to the unprovoked military aggression against the people of Iran.

We are simultaneously witnessing the relentless tightening of the brutal blockade against Cuba. Ultimately, we are confronted by a system that has abandoned all pretence of legality, morality, and human decency.

You, the Cuban people, have understood this long before the rest of the world was compelled to recognise it. For nearly 70 years, you have demonstrated, through daily revolutionary praxis, that a world founded on sovereignty, dignity, and the genuine prosperity of the many is not a utopian dream but an achievable reality. You have not lectured us; you have shown us. And you have paid for that demonstration with sacrifices that challenge the imagination.

The blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba is more than just an economic strangulation — it is a persistent act of war against an entire people, across generations, and it stands as one of the gravest ongoing crimes against humanity in the modern era.

Most recently, on 29 January 2026, the Trump administration signed Executive Order 14380, declaring a national emergency concerning Cuba and imposing an oil blockade that has deprived your people of fuel, threatening the collapse of hospitals, food supplies, and water systems.

This is the most severe escalation of the blockade in decades. The near-universal votes of the United Nations General Assembly condemning it year after year affirm what the peoples of the world already understand: Cuba’s right to self-determination is non-negotiable.

In response, you, our Cuban comrades, continue to demonstrate a true revolutionary spirit – through your resilience, ingenuity and the highest form of generosity and socialist internationalism.

Where the United States deploys soldiers and imposes sanctions, you have sent doctors and teachers. When Cubans stood alongside the people of Southern Africa in the fight against colonialism and the racist apartheid regimes, the world witnessed what true solidarity looks like. On the African continent, we have not forgotten, and we will not forget.

We will not accept that the cost of the right to self-determination is a prolonged, inhumane siege.

We refuse to accept that the sacrifices you have made are the price of choosing one’s own future.

We reaffirm our commitment — not only to support the Cuban people, lifelong comrades of Africa, but also to change the international conditions that allow such sieges.

We unequivocally declare the following:

• We condemn the criminal blockade of Cuba with contempt and pledge to intensify every effort to end it — politically, diplomatically, and in the court of international public opinion.
• We commit to strengthening our solidarity with the Cuban people and to ensuring that the truth about Cuba’s revolutionary achievements, and the crimes against it, reaches the widest possible audiences across our continent and the world.
• We salute the leadership of the Cuban Revolution for its steadfastness in the face of an ongoing US-led imperialist siege.
• We honour the memory of the revolution’s giants – such as Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Haydee Santamaria and others – by dedicating ourselves to upholding their example in our own struggles.
• We stand with the Cuban people as you withstand the latest tightening of the imperialist stranglehold.

You do not face this alone. An injury to Cuba is an injury to all of us.

Comrades, we conclude with a conviction rooted in the revolutionary praxis you have bequeathed to the world. To paraphrase Comandante Che Guevara: the world needs two, three, many Cubas. We have listened when Fidel taught us the importance of active struggle – that the duty of every revolutionary is to make revolution.

In our respective sites of struggle across Africa, we commit ourselves to doing precisely that: building the organised power of workers, peasants, women, and youth; deepening the anti-imperialist consciousness of our peoples; and forging the continental and international unity in action. This can break the chains of capitalism and imperialism – our ability to work together and construct the socialist world that the people of Cuba have dared to demonstrate is necessary. A world for the many, built by the many!

Long live the Cuban Revolution! Long live International Solidarity!

¡Patria o Muerte, Venceremos!

In revolutionary solidarity,

Pan Africanism Today (PAT) Secretariat

Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Articulation of the International Peoples Assembly

Endorsed by:

• Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) – South Africa
• African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC)
• All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-ARPRP)
• Association Béninoise de Solidarité et d’Amitié avec les Peuples (ABéSAP)
• Communist Party Marxist (CPMK) – Kenya
• Confédération Syndicale des Travailleurs du Bénin (CSTB)
• Democratic Patriots Unified party (AL Watad) – Tunisia
• Federation of Lesotho Trade Unions (FELETU) – Lesotho
• International committee of Thomas Sankara memorial, Burkina Faso
• La Via Campesina Southern and Eastern Africa (LVC SEAf)
• Lesotho Association of Teachers (LAT)
• Lesotho School Principals’ Association (LESPA)
• Lesotho Workers Association (LEWA)
• Ligue des jeunes Paysans de la RDC – Democratic Republic of Congo
• Modibo Keita School (EMOK) – Mali
• Mouvement des Femmes pour la Libération du Peuple et le Progrès Sociale (MFLPP)
• Mtandao wa Vikundi vya Wakulima Tanzania – MVIWATA
• National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA)
• Organisations pour les Droits de l’Homme et des Peuples (ODHP)
• Parti Communiste du Bénin (PCB)
• Parti communiste révolutionnaire de Côte d’ivoire (PCRCI)
• People’s United Democratic Movement – Swaziland (PUDEMO)
• Qiloane Nursing & Others Union (QINUASA) – Lesotho
• Rodrigues Worker Federation – Rodrigues
• Tanzania Socialist Forum – TASOFO
• Socialist Movement of Ghana (SMG)
• Socialist Party of Zambia (SP)
• Swaziland Youth Congress (SWAYOCO) PUDEMO Youth League
• Union de la Jeunesse Communiste du Bénin (UJCB)
• United Food and Allied Workers Union of Zimbabwe (UFAWUZ)
• United Textiles Employees Union (UNITE)
• West Africa Peoples Organisations (WAPO)
• Women Concerns Centre – Kenya
• Zimbabwe Smallholder Organic Farmers’ Forum (ZIMSOFF)

[Nicholas Mwangi is a Kenyan writer, organiser, and member of the Ukombozi Library who contributes regularly to People’s Dispatch, focusing on African politics, anti-imperialist struggles, and popular movements. Courtesy: People’s Dispatch and The Internationalist. Peoples Dispatch is an international media organization with the mission of highlighting voices from people’s movements and organizations across the globe. Internationalist 360° is an online platform that publishes articles and analyses on global geopolitical issues, social justice movements, and international relations.]