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For Cuban People, Surrender is Not an Option

Manolo De Los Santos

The halls of power in Washington are echoing with a familiar, predatory chorus. Once again, the White House, various think-tank experts, and US politicians are predicting the “imminent collapse” of Cuba. This is a tune the world has heard for over sixty years, usually sung at its highest volume whenever the United States decides to tighten the economic noose around the island’s neck. However, in 2026, the rhetoric has shifted from sanctions to an overt campaign of total strangulation. Under a new executive order signed in late January, the second Trump administration has escalated the decades-long blockade into a proactive fuel blockade.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel laid bare the intended consequences in a press conference on February 5, 2026: “Not allowing a single drop of fuel to enter our country will affect transportation, food production, tourism, children’s education, and the healthcare system.” The objective is clear: to induce systemic failure, sow popular discontent, and create conditions for political destabilization. The White House rhetoric confirms this intent. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s statement on the same day, that “the Cuban government is on its last leg and its country is about to collapse,” is not an analysis but public signaling, a psychological operation meant to reinforce the narrative of inevitable doom and pressure Cuban leadership into unilateral concessions.

This policy is not merely a “sanction” in the traditional sense; it is a calculated attempt to suffocate a nation by blocking every drop of fuel from reaching its shores. The administration has authorized aggressive tariffs and sanctions on any foreign country or company that dares to trade oil with the island, effectively treating Cuban territorial waters as a zone of exclusion. Since December, multiple oil tankers headed to Cuba have been seized by US naval forces in the Caribbean or forced to return to their ports of origin under threat of asset forfeiture. In direct response to this intensifying siege, Cuba has announced sweeping fuel rationing measures designed to protect essential services. The plan prioritizes fuel for healthcare, water, food production, education, public transportation, and defense, while strictly limiting sales to private drivers. To secure vital foreign currency, the tourism sector and key export industries, such as cigar production, will continue operating. Schools will maintain full in-person primary education, with hybrid systems implemented for higher levels. The leadership of the Cuban Revolution has affirmed that Cuba “will not collapse.”

To the planners in the White House, Cuba is a 67-year-old problem to be solved with starvation and darkness. But to the Cuban people, the current crisis is a continuation of a long-standing refusal to trade their sovereignty for Washington’s demands of submission.

The ghost of the “Special Period”

To understand why the Cuban people have not descended into the chaos Washington predicted, one must look to the historical precedent of the “Special Period in Time of Peace.” Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba experienced an economic shock that would have toppled almost any other modern state. Overnight, the island lost 85% of its international trade and nearly all of its subsidized fuel imports. The resulting statistics were staggering: the Gross Domestic Product plummeted by 35%, and the daily caloric intake of the average citizen dropped from over 3,000 calories to roughly 1,800. During this era, the lights went out across the island for more than 16 hours a day, and the bicycle became the primary mode of transportation as the public transit system collapsed.

At the same time, Washington escalated its assault through the Torricelli Act (1992) and the Helms-Burton Law (1996), each tightening the noose around Cuba’s economy. However, instead of fracturing under the weight of this tightened blockade, Cubans developed “Option Zero”, a survival plan designed to keep hospitals running and children fed without any fuel, and the Cuban social fabric tightened. The government prioritized the distribution of remaining resources to the most vulnerable, ensuring that infant mortality rates remained lower than those in many parts of the United States despite the scarcity. This period proved that when a population is politically conscious of the external forces causing their suffering, they become extraordinarily resilient. The “Special Period” was not just a time of hunger; it was a period of forced innovation that gave rise to the world’s first national experiment in organic urban farming and mass-scale energy conservation.

The return of the energy crisis

The crisis of 2026 is, in many ways, a sequel to the 1990s, but with higher stakes and more advanced technological targets. The roots of the current energy shortage can be traced back to the first Trump administration’s decision in 2019 to target Cuban oil imports as a means of punishing the island for its solidarity with Venezuela. By designating Cuba as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” and activating Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, the US successfully scared off international shipping lines and insurance companies. This was followed by a focused campaign against the PDVSA (Venezuela’s state oil company) and the shipping firms involved in the trade agreement between countries in the region known as ALBA-TCP.

By 2025, the impact on Cuba’s energy grid was catastrophic. The island’s thermal power plants, most of which were built with aging Soviet technology, were never designed to burn the heavy, sulfur-rich crude that Cuba produces domestically without constant maintenance and expensive imported additives. The lack of foreign exchange, caused by the tightening of the blockade, meant that spare parts were non-existent. By the time the 2026 fuel blockade began, the national grid was already operating at 25% below its required capacity. President Miguel Díaz-Canel has been transparent with the public, noting that without fuel, everything from the morning school bus to the refrigeration systems for the nation’s advanced biotech medicines is under constant threat, a reality that has now precipitated the stringent new rationing regime.

The threat of intervention: from Caracas to Havana

The current US stance toward Cuba cannot be viewed in isolation from its recent military interventions in the Middle East and Latin America. The “regime change” efforts in Cuba are being modeled after the maximum pressure campaigns used against Iran and the military incursions seen in Venezuela on January 3, 2026. The threat of a US military attack is no longer a rhetorical flourish used by Havana to drum up nationalism; it is a documented strategic option discussed in Washington.

The logic behind such an intervention is twofold. First, there is the ideological drive to eliminate the “contagion” of a country that questions the Monroe Doctrine and US domination in the region. Cuba’s existence serves as a reminder that sovereignty is possible even in the shadow of a superpower. Second, and more pragmatically, the US is motivated by a thirst for strategic minerals. Cuba sits on some of the world’s largest reserves of nickel and cobalt, essential components of lithium-ion batteries that power the global transition to electric vehicles and advanced weaponry. In a world where the US is scrambling to compete with China for control of the mineral and energy supply chain, a sovereign Cuba that controls its own mines is seen as an obstacle to American hegemony. If the US can force a collapse, these minerals would no longer belong to the Cuban people; they would be auctioned off to US corporations as it was before 1959.

The new resistance: extraordinary efforts in renewable energy

However, the Cuban response to this renewed strangulation is not a white flag of surrender. Recognizing that fossil fuel dependence is a vulnerability the US will always exploit, Cuba has, in recent years, launched an extraordinary national effort to transform its energy matrix. Building on this momentum, the country completed 49 new solar parks in 2025 alone. This massive undertaking added approximately 1,000 megawatts of power to the national grid, marking a 7% increase in total grid capacity and accounting for a remarkable 38% of the nation’s energy generation. By the end of March 2026, with support from China, the island is on track to add over 150 MW of renewable power to its grid through the rapid deployment of solar parks.

The strategy is clear: if the empire can shut off the oil, Cuba will harvest the sun. “The way the US energy blockade has been implemented reinforces our commitment to the renewable energy strategy,” President Miguel Díaz-Canel declared. The government has committed to a plan to generate 24% of the country’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030, with a long-term goal of achieving total energy independence. This involves not just large-scale solar farms, but the decentralization of the grid through the installation of thousands of small-scale solar panels on homes and state buildings. This “energy sovereignty” movement is the 21st-century equivalent of the 1990s urban gardens. It is a way of overcoming the US blockade by removing the very commodity, oil, that Washington uses as a leash.

The narrative of Cuba’s “imminent collapse” has been written a thousand times by people who do not understand the depth of the island’s historical memory. The 2026 fuel blockade is a brutal crime against a civilian population, designed to create the very chaos that the US media then reports on as “proof” of government failure. It is the arsonist blaming the house for being flammable. The newly imposed fuel rationing is not a sign of surrender, but a tactical maneuver of national defense, a structured effort to outlast the assault while safeguarding the pillars of Cuban society that precisely make it an alternative to the US model.

Yet, Cuba’s message to the world remains consistent. They are willing to talk and trade, but not to be owned or become a neo-colony of the United States. The story of Cuba is not one of a failed state, but of a people who have decided that the most potent fuel for their future isn’t oil, it’s the will to remain independent. As the sun rises over the new solar arrays in the Cuban countryside, it serves as a silent, glowing testament to a nation that refuses to disappear.

[Manolo De Los Santos is Executive Director of The People’s Forum and a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. His writing appears regularly in Monthly Review, Peoples Dispatch, CounterPunch, La Jornada, and other progressive media. He coedited, most recently, Viviremos: Venezuela vs. Hybrid War (LeftWord, 2020), Comrade of the Revolution: Selected Speeches of Fidel Castro (LeftWord, 2021), and Our Own Path to Socialism: Selected Speeches of Hugo Chávez (LeftWord, 2023). Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch, an international media organization with the mission of highlighting voices from people’s movements and organizations across the globe.]

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The Cuban Revolution Holds Out Against U.S. Imperialism

Vijay Prashad

In January 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump declared Cuba to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. security, a designation that allows the United States government to use sweeping economic restrictions traditionally reserved for national security adversaries. The U.S. blockade against Cuba began in the 1960s, right after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, but has tightened over the years. Without any mandate from the United Nations Security Council (which permits sanctions under strict conditions) the United States has operated an illegal, unilateral blockade that tries to force countries from around the world to stop doing basic commerce with Cuba. The new restrictions focus on oil. The United States government has threatened tariffs and sanctions on any country that sells or transports oil to Cuba.

On January 3, the United States attacked Venezuela and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro Moros and National Assembly deputy Cilia Flores. As 150 U.S. military aircraft sat above Caracas, the United States informed the Venezuelan government that if they did not concede to a list of demands, the U.S. would essentially convert downtown Caracas to Gaza City. The remainder of the government, with no leverage in the conversation, had to effectively make a tactical compromise and accept the U.S. demands. One of these demands was that Venezuela cease to export oil to Cuba. In 2025, Venezuela contributed about 34% of Cuba’s total oil demand. With Venezuelan oil out of the picture in the short run, Cuba already anticipated a serious problem.

But this was not all. Mexico supplied 44% of Cuba’s imported crude oil in 2025. Pressure now mounted from Washington on Mexico City to cease its oil exports to Cuba, which would then mean that almost 80% of Cuba’s oil imports would disappear. In a phone call between Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum and Trump, he claimed that he told her to stop selling oil to Cuba, but she denied that, saying that the two presidents only talked in broad terms about U.S.-Mexico relations. Either way, the pressure on Mexico to stop its oil shipments has been considerable. Sheinbaum has stressed that Mexico must be permitted to make sovereign decisions and that the Mexican people will not buckle under U.S. pressure. Cutting fuel to Cuba would cause a humanitarian crisis, Sheinbaum said.

Trump’s savage policy has effectively cut off much of Cuba’s oil imports, which has created a major energy crisis on the island of eleven million people. There are rolling blackouts, fuel shortages for hospitals, water systems, and transportation, and rationing of electricity. Due to the lack of aviation fuel, several commercial airlines (such as Air Canada) have stopped their flights to Havana.

The United Nations has warned that the U.S. pressure campaign (especially the policy to target fuel) threatens Cuba’s food and water supplies, hospitals, schools, and basic services. UN officials, including the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Cuba, have condemned the U.S. tightening of the blockade as a measure that directly harms ordinary citizens. They pointed out that restrictions make it harder for hospitals to obtain essential medicines, dialysis clinics to operate, and medical equipment to reach patients, worsening the health crisis on the island. The Special Rapporteur described the policy as “punitive and disproportionate”, emphasizing that it violates international law and deepens socio-economic hardships. The UN has urged the United States to lift sanctions and prioritize humanitarian exemptions, stressing that dialogue and cooperation (not coercive measures) are necessary to protect Cuban lives and human rights.

A group of United Nations human rights experts condemned Trump’s executive order as a “serious violation of international law” and “a grave threat to a democratic and equitable international order.” They argued that Trump’s order seeks to coerce Cuba and third states by threatening trade sanctions, and that such extraterritorial economic measures risk causing severe humanitarian consequences. Their statement made it clear that no right under international law permits a State to impose economic penalties on third States for lawful trade relations, and they called on the Trump administration to rescind the illegal order. The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly against the blockade every year since 1992, often with only the U.S. and Israel opposed.

The Blockade by the U.S. has had a grave impact on Cuba’s development paradigm. Since the start of the Blockade over sixty years ago, the U.S. has cost Cuba 171 billion USD or if adjusted for the price of gold, 2.10 trillion USD. Between March 2024 and February 2025, the Cuban government estimates that the Blockade caused about 7.5 billion USD in damages, a 49% increase since the previous period. If you take the 171 billion USD number, the Cuban people lose 20.7 million USD per day or 862,568 USD per hour. These losses are grievous for a small country that attempts to build a rational society rooted in socialist values.

Response from Havana

Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel has strongly condemned the tightened U.S. measures as an “economic war” and has argued that the U.S. policy is designed to weaken Cuba’s sovereignty. The government calls this an “energy blockade” and emphasizes that the shortages on the island are a direct result of U.S. coercive policies. In reaction, the Cuban Revolution has implemented emergency plans, including fuel rationing to prioritize essential services such as hospitals, water systems, and public transportation. Cuba has also announced state directives to manage diminished energy supplies, including shifts toward alternative and renewable energy sources where feasible. The Chinese government has donated equipment for large-scale solar parks to be built in Artemisa, Granma, Guantánamo, Holguín, Las Tunas, and Pinar del Río. In the long-term, China will assist Cuba to build 92 solar farms to add 2,000 megawatts of solar capacity. To assist households in remote areas, the Chinese government has sent 5,000 solar kits for rooftop energy harvesting. Fuel from Mexico and Russia, as well as other countries is now on the way to Cuba. Trump’s policy of isolation has not fully succeeded.

The Cuban government said that it is in touch with Washington, but not holding direct high-level talks yet. President Díaz-Canel has said that his government would speak to the United States but only under three important conditions. First, that the dialogue will be respectful, serious, and without pressure or preconditions. Second, that the dialogue must respect Cuba’s sovereignty, independence, and political system. And finally, that the Cuban government is unwilling to negotiate the Cuban Constitution (recently revised in 2019) or Cuba’s commitment to socialism. If the United States insists on a discussion on any of these three issues, there will be no dialogue. The Cuban Revolution’s defiance on these issues is rooted in its history—since the Revolution itself was an act of defiance against the U.S. claim on its control over the Western Hemisphere through the 1823 Monroe Doctrine (now renewed by Trump in 2025 with his Corollary). This defiance has been contagious, building a Latin American resistance to U.S. imperialism from the 1960s to the present (including at the heart of the Bolivarian process in Venezuela).

The Angry Tide

Latin America is going through a rapid and dangerous transformation. Country after country (from Argentina to El Salvador) have elected to power political formations from the Far Right of a Special Type. These are leaders who have committed themselves to strong conservative social values (rooted in the growth of reactionary Evangelical Christianity across the Americas), to a ruthless attack on the poor through a war on crime (shaped by a theory that calls for the arrest of any potential criminals and their incarceration, a policy pioneered by El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele), and by a sharp turn toward Western Civilization that includes an orientation towards the United States and against China (this sentiment oscillates from a celebration of Western culture to a hatred of communism). The emergence of the Far Right of a Special Type appears as if it will be in charge for a generation if it can erase the left from power in Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (in Brazil, this Right has already taken charge of the legislature).

The parallel attacks on Venezuela and Cuba are part of the United States’ contribution to this rise of the Angry Tide across the Americas. Trump and his cronies would like to install their kind of leaders (such as Javier Milei) across the Americas as part of the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. It is this that revives the idea of sovereignty in the Americas. When the Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny ended his performance at the U.S. Super Bowl with a celebration of all the countries in the Americas, and when he named each of them, that gesture was itself part of the battle over the idea of sovereignty.

The Cuban Revolution holds out against U.S. imperialism, but under great pressure. Solidarity with Cuba is for the Cuban people, for the Cuban Revolution, for the reality of sovereignty across the Americas, and for the idea of socialism in the world. This is now the frontline of the fight against imperialism.

[Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter, 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. Courtesy: Globetrotter, a project of Independent Media Institute, a nonprofit organization that educates the public through a diverse array of independent media projects and programs.]

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Will Cuba Survive?

Michael Smith

Born in crisis, strengthened by rejection, Cuba once again faces economic asphyxiation by Washington, which is moving in for the kill after sixty-seven years of attacking the island.[1]

Since the triumph of their revolution in 1959, Cubans have infuriated U.S. leaders with their specialized genius in overcoming catastrophe, whether it take the form of a hurricane, flood, invasion, hijacking, chemical attack, biological attack, or economic warfare.

Between disasters, they eat, drink, dance, and make merry.

Today with the second coming of Trump, the abduction of Nicolas Maduro, and the cutting off of Venezuelan oil to Havana, they face a very familiar ratcheting up of imperial sadism to make them beg for relief.

Bus stops stand empty and fewer cars and pedestrians circulate in the street. Lack of fuel is palpable, and many gas stations have shut down. Air Canada is suspending service to the island.

Families turn to wood and coal for cooking amidst the constant power outages. Emergency restrictions mandate a four-day work week, reduced transport between provinces, the closing of main tourist facilities, shorter school days, and reduced in-person attendance requirements at universities.

But somehow life flows on in Havana, and there’s plenty to do. Near the train station on the boardwalk, people fish. When night falls, neighborhoods fill with young people engaged in cultural projects, or playing soccer or basketball.

A 32-year-old Cuban woman named Yadira expressed a key part of the national psychology well to journalist Louis Hernandez Navarro recently in the Mexican daily La Jornada. Two years ago, she left the island hoping to reach the United States, leaving her nine-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son with their grandparents. She never made it to the U.S. and had to stay in Mexico City, working in a fish shop in the Nonoalco market. Now she’s back in Havana.

“However far from home I may be,” she says, there’s a little piece of me still in Cuba, and I don’t just mean my children . . .. I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to my country. I don’t like politics, but what we are experiencing with Trump goes beyond politics. How come someone who isn’t even Cuban has to come and decide how we have to live?”

Navarro observes that those now counting on precipitating a “regime change” by strangling the life of Cuba, forget how intimate the bonds with one’s native country are, how quickly even the apolitical like Yadira can be provoked into fierce resistance. It is a foolish but frequent forgetting.

He goes on to note that now is not the first time that the end of the Cuban revolution was said to be at hand. In 1991, Argentine journalist Andres Oppenheimer published the book, “Castro’s Final Hour,” the product of a six-month stay in Cuba and five-hundred interviews with high officials and government opponents.

A contributor to the Miami Herald and CNN, Oppenheimer lives in the United States and enjoys close ties to the Cuban exile community in Miami. According to Navarro, the book describes what the author took to be the imminent collapse of Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution after three decades in power.

But the much yearned-for outcome quickly evaporated. Confident forecasts of the prompt and inevitable disintegration of the Cuban government, written as the “Iron Curtain” was falling and the USSR vanishing, turned out to be a mirage. Promiscuously spread as a kind of Gospel in newspapers and on TV, the predictions remained unfulfilled. Fidel Castro stubbornly lived another 25 years, was succeeded in power by his brother Raul, who, in turn, was succeeded by Miguel Diaz-Canel.

Thirty-five years later, U.S. military aggression against Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Maduro have revived the prophecy of impending doom for the Cuban revolution. The fantasy feeds on extrapolations from the importance that “Chavismo” had for the survival of revolutionary politics on the island, leaping to easy conclusions that Communist rule will abruptly collapse.

It is certainly true that in Hugo Chavez’s time, up to a hundred thousand barrels of Venezuelan oil a day were distributed to Cuba, and after the economic siege against the Maduro government was imposed (2021-2025), the figure plummeted to thirty thousand barrels a day, a severe blow to the island’s economy. Today, Havana only has about 40,000 of the 100,000 daily barrels it needs, while implementation of its plan to promote renewable forms of energy so as to rely less on fossil fuels advances at a slower pace than the country’s growing needs.

To make matters worse, Trump has tightened the energy blockade, threatening to charge tariffs on countries daring to supply Cuba with fuel. This has profoundly negative consequences for public health, food, and, of course, daily life. Cubans were already suffering frequent power outages, as well as scarcity and deprivation on a scale not seen since the “special period” of economic crisis after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, but now must withstand almost constant shut-downs. On many parts of the island outages last more than half the day.

But does that mean that the collapse of the Cuban government is imminent or that “regime change” is about to occur? Cuba’s Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Perez-Oliva Fraga says absolutely not: “This is an opportunity and a challenge that we have no doubt we will overcome. We are not going to collapse.”

Pointing to the determination of so many resisting Cubans and the social cohesion born of rejecting Trump’s crude interventionism, Navarro claims announcements of the end of the Cuban revolution are no more than a phantom born of the yearnings of Cuba-haters for redemption and of Trump to win votes for the upcoming mid-term elections.

In order to breathe life into the idea that regime change has legs, various news platforms in the Washington orbit have recently spread the message that Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel called the United States to request a serious dialogue, which, so it was said, represented a change of stance by the Cuban government towards the United States, provoked by Trump’s absurd January 29 declaration[2] proclaiming tiny Cuba a threat to the national security of the United States, and warning of retaliation

But in reality there was no change of stance, just the umpteenth invitation for dialogue and understanding to prevail between the two countries, on a base of equality and mutual respect, which Cuba has always insisted on.

From Cuba’s point of view, the latest phase of U.S. attacks on the island started with the extermination campaign in Gaza and the world paralysis that let it proceed, which encouraged delusions of omnipotence in Washington.

Now Donald Trump wants to impose hunger on Cubans to make them renounce socialism, which is not at all a new idea. Like his predecessors in the Oval Office, he doesn’t want there to be a base for anti-imperial politics anywhere in the world, much less just ninety miles away from the U.S.

Cuba, after all, once sent hundreds of thousands of its troops thousands of miles from home to humiliate white South Africa on the battlefield. Its withering advance in southwestern Angola and electrifying defeat of apartheid forces at Cuito Cuanavale featuring Cuban mastery of the skies were key events in bringing down the loathesome regime. Nelson Mandela said the Cuban victory at Cuito Cuanavale “destroyed the myth of the invincibility of the white oppressor [and] inspired the fighting masses of South Africa . . . Cuito Cuanavale was the turning point for the liberation of our continent – and of my people – from the scourge of apartheid.”

On his first trip outside Africa Mandela made a point of visiting Havana in July, 1991 to deliver a message of gratitude in person to the Cuban people: “We come here with a sense of the great debt that is owed the Cuban people. What other country can point to a record of greater selflessness than Cuba has displayed in its relations to Africa?”

The U.S. defined Mandela as a terrorist until 2008, and regards Havana as a terrorist regime right now.

Madness. Meanwhile, on the ground in Cuba, against the wind and a rising reactionary tide, a proud and resilient people, survivors of a thousand betrayals and besieged by a vile blockade, defiantly survives.

Notes.

1. This imperial arrogance dates as far back as Thomas Jefferson, who wanted to annex Cuba.

2. Addressing Threats To The United States By The Government Of Cuba” www.whitehouse.gov

Sources

Luis Hernandez Navarro, “Cuba: a society forged in crises: we have endured them all”, La Jornada, February 7, 2026 (Spanish)

Gabriela Vera Lopes, “A Solidarity That Takes Risks and Puts Our Bodies On The Line is Indispensable,” February 6, 2026, www.rebelion.org (Spanish)

“From blackouts to food shortages: How U.S. blockade is crippling life in Cuba,” Al Jazeera, February 8, 2026

Ignacio Ramonet & Fidel Castro, Fidel Castro – My Life (Scribner, 2006) pps. 316-25

Piero Gleijeses, Visions of Freedom – Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa 1976-1991, (University of North Carolina, 2013, pps. 519, 526

[Michael K. Smith is a writer for CounterPunch.org and Countercurrents.org who frequently analyzes U.S.-Cuba relations. 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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Five Cuban Women Resistance Stories That Defy U.S. Blockade Brutality

Telesur English

Cuban Women Resistance has become the defining characteristic of a nation under siege for more than six decades. The United States’ severe economic, commercial, and financial blockade has transformed daily life into an obstacle course that tests human endurance at every turn. This siege strikes not only the economy but reaches into the very heart of Cuban homes, where women have emerged as the backbone of survival and defiance.

In recent weeks, this pressure has intensified with new restrictive measures from Washington aimed at preventing fuel from reaching the island, triggering an energy crisis that once again tests the Caribbean nation’s capacity to reinvent itself. But amid scarcity, popular organization emerges, and above all, the strength of Cuban women shines through.

Healthcare Under Siege: Women Fighting for Life

Emma Doris Ricardo Santana knows intimately the weight of these restrictions. A mother and university-level teacher, her life took a dramatic turn when aggressive breast cancer forced her to leave the classroom. The blockade interfered directly with her recovery: the scarcity of cytotoxic serums prevented her from receiving complete treatment within the expected timeframe.

The lack of medications was compounded by the ordeal of transportation, forcing her to make pilgrimages to three different hospitals. Despite everything, Emma resurged thanks to the commitment of Cuban public healthcare and an unbreakable network of affection and solidarity.

“Medicines heal, but solidarity also cures. That’s what makes you get up,” she says with a recovered smile, though her eyes reveal a latent concern that never fully disappears.

Her 10-year-old daughter Claudia suffers from a growth disorder. The necessary reagents and hormones do not reach the island due to sanctions. “The family’s priority is her. The little one requires treatment that we still cannot do in Cuba,” Emma explains with heartbreaking clarity.

But far from surrendering, Emma remains firm in her convictions. “I have my boots on. We will not be intimidated; surrender has no place in Cubans. We decide our own destiny, no one else,” she declares with unwavering determination.

The Dream of Motherhood Against All Odds

At 29 years old, Rocío Rincón has a single objective in life: to become a mother. A civilian worker at the Carlos J. Finley Hospital, she lives with a pituitary tumor that has prevented her from fulfilling her dream. In her home, a Yoruba altar and a painting of five angel girls guard her deepest longing.

“None of those creatures are mine, but achieving having a baby is my goal,” she confesses with profound sadness, yet remarkable serenity. Rocío is grateful that her treatment is free thanks to the Cuban healthcare system, although the instability in medication supply—which often depends on donations from friendly countries—casts a constant shadow over her hopes.

“Too many people are suffering because of this blockade. With Trump, the situation is much more aggressive; these are measures to suffocate us, but they will not succeed,” Rocío states firmly, reflecting the sentiment of thousands of women who, between scarcity and faith, refuse to let go of the reins of their future.

The Cuban Women Resistance movement is not organized in formal structures but emerges organically from the daily struggles of mothers, daughters, sisters, and grandmothers who refuse to allow external pressures to dictate their destiny or diminish their dignity.

Geopolitical Context: A Six-Decade Siege

The U.S. blockade against Cuba represents one of the longest-standing economic sanctions in modern history, dating back to the early 1960s. This comprehensive embargo has been condemned repeatedly by the United Nations General Assembly, with near-universal opposition from the international community. The measures restrict Cuba’s access to international financial markets, limit trade opportunities, and create severe obstacles for acquiring essential medicines, medical equipment, and food supplies.

The humanitarian impact extends far beyond economic statistics, affecting every aspect of daily life from healthcare to education, from energy access to food security. Women, who traditionally bear primary responsibility for family welfare and community cohesion, face disproportionate burdens as they navigate these manufactured shortages while maintaining households and caring for children and elderly relatives.

The recent tightening of sanctions under successive U.S. administrations has specifically targeted fuel shipments, creating cascading effects throughout Cuban society. Energy shortages affect hospitals’ ability to operate equipment, schools’ capacity to provide education, and families’ basic ability to cook food or preserve medications. This strategic pressure point reveals the blockade’s true nature as a tool of collective punishment rather than a legitimate foreign policy instrument.

Community Manuel Isla: Cultivating Sovereignty in the Most Remote Corner

Far from the bustle of the capital, the Manuel Isla community—named in honor of a young martyr of the Revolution—stands as a model of self-management. There, professionals, educators, and workers have built an oasis of resistance that demonstrates the power of local solutions to global problems.

In this environment lives María Eva Puentes Torres, a Santiago baker over 60 years old who works wearing an apron adorned with bunnies and fights against blackouts to deliver her cakes. Each tart is a work of art and resistance, crafted with determination despite the obstacles designed to break her spirit.

“The blackouts take away our ability to work and affect my university daughter’s studies, who cannot even charge her phone to see her subjects,” she confesses indignantly, her frustration palpable yet controlled.

However, her stance remains unshakeable in the face of adversity. “This country is ours. We will resist with creativity. No one surrenders here,” María Eva declares with the quiet confidence of someone who has weathered countless storms and emerged stronger each time.

The Cuban Women Resistance exemplified by María Eva extends beyond individual survival to community building, food production, and the preservation of cultural values that external forces seek to undermine through economic warfare.

Ainara: The Voice of the Future That Knows No Fear

Cuban bravery knows no age limits. Ainara Neira Reyes, at just 11 years old, speaks with the maturity of someone who understands that her school is a trench of values and principles. Although the blockade limits her pencils, notebooks, or even the possibility of practicing volleyball because there are no balls, she feels protected by her teachers and community.

“The pioneers will always move forward,” affirms Ainara, who stays informed daily and understands that external hatred seeks to break her spirit but will never succeed.

Her message to children around the world is one of pure solidarity and unwavering hope. “We are going through a difficult moment, but if you go through something similar, from here we will support you. Do not let yourselves be defeated!” she proclaims with the clarity and conviction that only childhood honesty can provide.

The young pioneer represents the next generation of Cuban Women Resistance, proving that dignity and determination are not learned behaviors but inherent qualities that flourish even under the most challenging circumstances.

The Language of the “Indomitable Guerrilla”

As Tatiana Coll, a historical collaborator of the island and witness to the historic 1970 harvest, well remembers, Cubans have a special nature: perhaps in routine they may seem relaxed, but “as soon as the defense trumpet sounds, no one surpasses them.”

They activate in guerrilla mode, a characteristic that Fidel taught them and that today women—from the baker to the pioneer—embody with a dignity that knows no surrender. This capacity for rapid mobilization and creative problem-solving has become the hallmark of Cuban society’s response to external pressure.

In Cuba, resistance is not just a political concept; it is the hand of a mother baking a cake in the dark, it is a girl defending her right to study, and it is a community that, faced with the lack of fuel, decides to grow its own food. Solidarity and sovereignty, definitively, have a woman’s face.

The Cuban Women Resistance movement demonstrates that true strength lies not in military might or economic power, but in the unbreakable human spirit that refuses to be conquered, the community bonds that strengthen under pressure, and the unwavering belief that a people’s destiny must be determined by its own hands, not by foreign powers seeking to impose their will through starvation and scarcity.

[Courtesy: teleSUR English, a Latin American terrestrial and satellite news television network headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela and sponsored by the governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba and Nicaragua. It was launched in 2005, under the government of Hugo Chávez, promoted as “a Latin socialist answer to CNN”.]