From blockade to suffocation: the United States' war against Cuba enters its most brutal phase

5 min read MANOLO DE LOS SANTOS 0 comments

MANOLO DE LOS SANTOS

In the stillness of a Havana night, the only sounds are the hum of a generator at a distant hospital and the murmur of a family gathered by candlelight. For them, “U.S. national security” is not an abstract concept debated on American wire news; it is the tangible reality of a 20-hour blackout, the smell of spoiled food, and the fear for a child’s refrigerated medication. This is the face of a policy that the U.S. government calls a response to an “extraordinary threat.” Yet the real threat is not military. It is the 67-year-old challenge from a small island nation that has refused to relinquish its sovereignty.

On January 29, 2026, the Trump Administration transformed a long-standing pressure campaign into a powerful instrument of strangulation. Through an executive order, it weaponized the U.S. tariff system against any nation, including countries like Mexico, that dares to sell oil to Cuba. This is no longer about isolating or containing the Cuban people from the rest of the hemisphere, but rather a deliberate strategy of total economic strangulation, a measure unprecedented in its aggressiveness since the Cold War.

The machinery of suffocation

Cuba's electrical grid, water pumps, public transportation, hospitals, and schools all run on imported fuel. By coercing third countries, the United States not only seeks to impose sanctions but also to disrupt the very functioning of a nation. The Cuban government's statement was unequivocal: it is a case of "blackmail, threats, and direct coercion" aimed at preventing fuel from entering the country.

The result is collective punishment, a violation of international law that uses hunger, darkness, and disease as political weapons to break the will of a people.

A constant war: the imperial playbook from Eisenhower to Trump

To call this "foreign policy" is to underestimate its nature. It is a constantly evolving, multilateral instrument of warfare, relentlessly pursued by ten consecutive US presidencies with a single objective: the destruction of Cuba's socialist project.

Eisenhower (1960) The aggression began with the first blockade after Cuba nationalized the US-owned refineries.
Kennedy (1961-1962) He intensified the aggression with the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, made the blockade total, and gave the green light to Operation Mongoose, a secret program of sabotage and attempted assassination of Cuban leaders, which included more than 630 attempts against Fidel Castro.
Clinton (1992-1996) He delivered what was expected to be a "coup de grâce" after the fall of the Soviet Union, passing the Torricelli and Helms-Burton Acts. These laws extended the US embargo extraterritorially, penalizing foreign companies for trading with Cuba and asserting US authority over world trade.
Trump (2017-2026)After a fragile thaw under Obama, the US not only reversed course but plunged even deeper into cruelty. It reinstated Cuba on the list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism,” a move widely condemned as political fiction, and enacted 243 new sanctions. Its most recent act, the 2026 executive order, seeks to seal the island’s fate by cutting off its energy supply.

The strategy has always been clear in its intent. A declassified 1960 State Department memorandum, written by Lester D. Mallory, advocated creating "hunger, desperation, and the overthrow of the government" by withholding "money and supplies." The human cost is the objective, not a side effect.

The "brutal dilemma" and its human cost

This self-inflicted crisis has measurable and devastating consequences. In the 1990s, the tightening of the blockade led to a 40% drop in caloric intake and a 48% increase in tuberculosis deaths. Today, it prevents the purchase of medical ventilators, spare parts for water purification systems, and, most importantly, the fuel to operate them.

This suffering is presented as a necessary sacrifice by members of the Cuban-American mafia who sit in the United States Congress. U.S. Representative Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida recently articulated this chilling calculation: “It is devastating to think of a mother’s hunger, of a child who needs immediate help… But that is precisely the brutal dilemma we face…: alleviate short-term suffering or liberate Cuba forever.”

This promised “freedom” is a return to the pre-1959 past, when US companies controlled 80% of Cuba’s public services and 70% of all arable land. It is the “freedom” to exploit, bought with the calculated suffering of an entire generation.

The "Donroe Doctrine": Unleashed Imperialism

Trump’s escalation is the cornerstone of his administration’s “Donroe Doctrine,” a 21st-century reinterpretation of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which declares that all of Latin America and the Caribbean are the property of the United States. Following the illegal attack on Venezuela on January 3, 2016, Trump openly declared: “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never again be challenged.” According to this doctrine, any nation that chooses an independent path, especially one that organizes its economy around human needs, such as Cuba’s world-renowned healthcare system, is considered a “national emergency.”

The war abroad and the war at home

For the American people, it is crucial to see this not as a distant problem, but as part of an ongoing pattern. The same administration that invokes “national emergencies” to strangle Cuba’s economy uses “emergencies” to unleash ICE raids in American cities and kill its own citizens, like Renee Good and Alex Pretti. The same mindset that labels 11 million Cubans a collective threat for exercising their right to self-determination labels migrants and minorities as internal threats. The logic of the embargo and the logic of the border are one and the same: the violent control of populations and resources, and the designation of entire groups of human beings as disposable.

The flickering candle in that Havana house is, therefore, more than a light against the darkness. It is a challenge to the imperial order. The Cuban people's struggle to keep their lights burning is a fundamental struggle for the right of all peoples to determine their own destiny, free from the coercion of an empire that confuses domination with security and cruelty with strength. As in the past, Cubans will rise up collectively to face the challenge, not only to survive, but to overcome the blockade.