Hundreds of delegates have arrived in Cuba as part of the Nuestra América convoy. They’ve brought with them medical aid and equipment as well as other essential supplies, tonnes of enthusiasm for the beleaguered island nation and – perhaps most importantly – the attention of the world.
Just in time too. Despite being up to his neck in it over Iran, US president Donald Trump, suffering an acute case of Havana syndrome, is still finding the time to lick his lips at a possible takeover of Cuba. This week, the socialist island experienced two country-wide blackouts as its electricity grid shut down in the face of a prolonged US oil embargo, one that’s caused rolling blackouts for months.
It’s economic warfare, designed to break the Cuban population. The question is: will it work?
Donald Trump recently spoke of having “the honour of taking Cuba”. But if that’s what happens – and it’s far from clear that it will – there’ll be nothing honourable about it. Nobody these days writes poems and tributes to sad-sack men who deprive children and the sick of essential supplies like medicines, energy and clinical equipment to get what they want. And yet that’s exactly what Trump is doing in Cuba, while his lackeys, supporters and a significant contingent of Cuban émigrés in Miami (just 250 miles from where I’m sitting now), cheer him on.
“Whether I free it, take it,” said Trump of the island, “I think I can do anything I want with it.” That’s a line full of insight – not into the state of the world, but the state of the president’s understanding of it. For him, entire nations are things to be toyed with, to have things done to them or not, to be taken or given, overthrown or bombed. Whole societies are to be subject to his whims, whole populations his playthings.
Sovereignty? That’s for me, not for thee.
Of course, what is happening in Cuba now is only the most intense period of more than 60 years of US foreign policy. Since 1962, the US has cut off almost all commercial interactions with the island, while encouraging its allies to do the same. For the last 33 years, the rest of the world has largely been opposed to this lawless interference in Cuba’s economic, political and social life, with the UN General Assembly voting annually against the sanctions.
Fat lot of good that did. Except for a brief period under Barack Obama’s administration, the US has pursued its path of Cuban destruction with vigour. That vigour has become feverish under Trump’s second administration, as it seeks to dominate the western hemisphere. That’s something it’s not remotely shy about, having trumpeted the so-called Donroe doctrine – the muscular reassertion of US dominance in the region.
Except when the lights have all gone out, you can see the impact of that decades-long policy wherever you go in Havana. Buildings still serving as people’s homes are crumbling or even collapsing. Poverty is visible everywhere, as is, in some parts of town, a small but increasingly wealthy class of business owners.
But other markers of economic distress just aren’t there. Unlike in the US, where an accident or disease can leave you and your family destitute, bankrupt or on the streets, Cuba has an excellent health service, with roughly one doctor to every 130 people (the US has one to around every 400 people). Crime is also incredibly low (though it has increased alongside the country’s economic troubles) with Cuba’s population suffering violent crimes at a rate almost tenfold lower than in the US.
Given the US (alongside its BFF Israel) is currently bombing Iran in an illegal war while also holding the head of the Venezuelan state and his wife prisoner after a kidnapping operation, there’s an unfunny irony in the state department’s practice of calling Cuba a state-supporter of terrorism to justify US sanctions, blockades and sieges. As climbing world oil prices – a direct result of Trump’s attacks on Iran – terrorise people everywhere, it’s Cuba’s citizens, rather than the US’s, being stymied, threatened and starved.
The world owes Cuba more than this, and its people are looking to it for help. As one Cuban asked me, noting that it took Russia three months to send two ships to ease the oil blockade, “Where is Russia or China?”. And where are all those countries who built their healthcare systems, their independence or both on the backs of Cuban doctors and soldiers? Even Italy took advantage of Cuba’s medical prowess in 2020, when a medical brigade spent three months helping in Turin as the coronavirus swept terrifyingly through the city.
“We are alone,” is what I’ve been told by more than one Cuban this week. And with multiple US-allies (including the UK) warning their citizens against all but essential travel to the island, they feel more alone than ever. In what should be the country’s peak tourist season, hotels and restaurants are empty; a vital source of income now dried up.
So why does the British foreign office say not to travel? “Cuba,” we’re told, “Is experiencing severe and worsening disruption to essential infrastructure.” Experiencing. Like a disease or a hurricane, that’s the language of natural disaster. But this is not a natural disaster. It’s a very manmade one. A very American manmade one.
Critics like to say that the current situation is much the fault of the Cuban government. And there are Cubans on the island who will say the same. In fact, I haven’t met many who aren’t, in one way or another, critical of the current administration, accusing it of failing to properly plan, of overinvesting in the tourism sector, or of deprioritising the people it’s supposed to protect. It’s not for me to judge the validity of those complaints, though I’m sympathetic to some. But it’s also simply a matter of fact that every decision current and past Cuban leaders have made has been in an atmosphere strangled of possibility by the US embargo.
Internal criticism may abound, but I haven’t met many Cubans who aren’t proud of their country’s socialist revolution. And I’ve yet to meet any who welcome a US intervention (though I’m told they exist). According to the Atlantic, the White House already has regime change planned out. And Cuba’s military is preparing.
The question is: will the world let it happen? As it did with Venezuela, and as it is with Iran. Will the international community just sit back – again – as Trump decides to destroy yet another nation?
“Cubans are hopeful people,” one Havana resident told me, “But we are losing hope.”
Steven Methven is the editor of Novara Live, Novara Media’s nightly news and politics YouTube show.
