Cuba In Context

Modern day colonialism is the preservation of economic domination without direct colonial rule. Venezuela's oil agreement illustrates this logic: foreign capital receives legal protections under U.S. jurisdiction while Venezuela's sovereignty over its own resources is constrained.

The Cuban people are clamoring to experience the free market freedom of medical debt. In Cuba, healthcare is treated as an inalienable right the govt must provide. In the US, it's a for-profit industry where pharma companies extract as much as they can from people who need lifesaving medication.

Notice how the headline frames Cuba as the potential lawbreaker: a ship is “intercepted” while “smuggling” oil into the country. What the headline obscures is that the U.S. is the one violating international law by imposing an oil blockade on Cuba and hijacking oil shipments bound for the island.

US sanctions on Cuba are economic warfare: • 7,000+ containers stranded • Essential aid blocked: ICU solar panels, cancer meds, water treatment • Crucial shipping lost: Sanctions scared off cargo lines • Mass suffering: Surging hunger, 100k awaiting surgery www.nytimes.com/2026/09/17/w...

Bloomberg, a financial newspaper of choice for the business class, is framing the Venezuela oil deal as neocolonialism. When even a publication representing the interests of global capital is using the language of anti-imperialism, that says something.

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"The latest US sanctions make it “impossible, de facto and de jure, to maintain even minimal operational stability”, the Meliá group explained in a statement on Tuesday to the Spanish stock market regulator." www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

The U.S. has spent months pressuring developing countries like Venezuela to end their Cuban doctor programs, despite knowing many lack enough physicians to replace them. Then an earthquake strikes, exposing an under-resourced healthcare system made even less prepared for the crisis.

The media shapes public opinion by deciding which perspectives are treated as credible. A FAIR study found that coverage of Cuba centered U.S. officials and anti-government voices while giving far less attention to Cubans who emphasized the role of U.S. sanctions. fair.org/home/whose-v...

After failing to block a UN General Assembly debate on the U.S. embargo against Cuba, we're suddenly inundated with headlines portraying Cuba as a "National Security Threat." It's an attempt to bury the fact that the U.S. position on Cuba is overwhelmingly rejected by the international community.

The irony is remarkable. The WSJ invokes the struggle against apartheid to argue for regime change in Cuba, ignoring that the U.S. backed South Africa's apartheid govt while Cuba helped defeat it. Cuba's military intervention in Angola led to Namibia's independence & the collapse of apartheid

Italy refused U.S. pressure to end its Cuban doctor program because it has the economic and political leverage to say no. Many developing countries don't. They're forced to comply, even when it means losing doctors and leaving their own healthcare systems worse off. apnews.com/article/ital...

jacobin.com/2026/06/trum...

The phrase "sanctions" sanitizes what is actually happening. In Cuba, a humanitarian crisis is unfolding. Essential medicines are becoming unavailable, infant health outcomes are worsening, and more families are struggling to secure adequate nutrition.

"Like Haiti having to pay back the “debt” to slaveowners from their lost property values after the revolution, Cuba is expected to pay for treating its assets as belonging to the people as a whole rather than belonging to a small moneyed elite." www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-u.s...

For decades, the dominant development model imposed on poor countries has been: Open your economy to foreign capital. Sell off public assets. Export raw materials. Compete through cheap labor. Cuba pursued a different path by investing heavily in social development through healthcare & education.

"The human rights office, OHCHR, cited alarming figures: infant mortality has doubled to 9.9 per 1,000 births; childhood cancer survival rates have fallen from 85 to 65 per cent; and essential medicines are available at only around 30 per cent of normal supply levels." news.un.org/en/story/202...

"Donald Trump could save Cuba." The headline reflects a familiar media framework: U.S. sanctions on Cuba are presented as a form of liberation, while the human costs of these sanctions are treated as secondary or ignored altogether.

One of the most depraved aspects of U.S. policy towards Cuba is the effort to coerce developing countries into expelling Cuban doctors. Ending these programs not only punishes Cuba, but it also harms some of the world's poorest and most medically underserved people.

"However, its best form of resistance has been not just the assertion of national sovereignty, but the creation of an alternative model of development that places human welfare and environmental concerns at its core." www.redpepper.org.uk/global-polit...

The Supreme Court revived a lawsuit claiming cruise lines “trafficked” confiscated Cuban property by docking in Havana. A lower court had thrown the case out because Havana Docks Corp.’s lease expired before the cruises ever operated there. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/u...

Ray Washburne, a Trump ally with ties to U.S. military and intelligence circles, just bought control of Sherritt, a Canadian company operating in Cuba’s nickel industry. Does this signal that well connected political insiders expect Trump will definitely launch an invasion of Cuba?

"Miami is ground zero for the double standard driving US policy toward Cuba. The Cuban American hard-liners who dominate the city’s politics have long espoused violence, terrorism, and collective punishment against Cuba in the name of “freedom” and “human rights.” jacobin.com/2026/05/cast...

A story in three parts: 1) Trump's new sanctions push Sherritt to dissolve its Cuba venture. 2) Sherritt suddenly halts plans to leave Cuba. 3) A firm linked to a former Trump adviser buys a controlling stake in Sherritt

This is how the blockade on Cuba works in practice. Not just punishing Cuba directly — but intimidating shipping companies, banks, and foreign businesses into cutting ties with the island out of fear of US sanctions or lawsuits.

Media bias is often less about outright falsehoods and more about framing. Calling Cuba a “regime” instead of a government subtly delegitimizes it, while saying Cuba “rejected humanitarian aid” erases the possibility that the dispute was over the political conditions attached to the aid itself.

64% of Americans oppose a U.S. war with Cuba. Only 15% support it. There’s a massive gap between what the public wants and what the Trump Administration is pursuing in Cuba.

U.S. sanctions on Cuba have material consequences: A report from Center for Economic and Policy Research finds Cuba’s infant mortality rate jumped from 4.0 (2019) to 9.9 (2025)—a 148% increase. If rates held at 2018 levels, ~1,800 fewer babies would have died.

This is The Washington Post using its opinion section to manufacture consent for U.S. intervention in Cuba. When every “opinion” piece points in the same direction, it stops being analysis and starts functioning as propaganda.

Most Global South economies are structurally pushed toward low-wage labor and resource extraction. Cuba took a different path—investing in science, healthcare, and education. The result: a biotech sector competitive with developed countries, built under sanctions.

Cuba gets hit by an external shock → the U.S. escalates pressure: 1990s: Soviet Union collapses → embargo tightened by Clinton 2020s: COVID + Venezuela crisis → sanctions on tourism expand, oil blockade implemented by Trump Different decades, same strategy.

Not talked about enough: many Cuban exiles celebrated as “freedom fighters” came from families that owned enormous wealth in pre-revolution Cuba. Their politics aren’t neutral—they’re about restoring an economic system that served them extremely well, prioritizing capital over social programs.

Cuba built a model of medical internationalism rooted in solidarity, not profit. Now Washington is waging a pressure campaign to shut it down—undermining healthcare systems across the Global South just to tighten the blockade. The human cost is staggering. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Reminder: for over 30 years, the United Nations has overwhelmingly voted to end the embargo on Cuba. This isn’t a contested global issue—it’s a uniquely United States policy, maintained despite near-universal international opposition.

For over 60 years, US policy toward Cuba hasn’t been about “freedom”—it’s been about punishment for defiance. Sanctions, isolation, pressure—all to force regime change. The real story is an effort to dictate how developing countries pursue development—so it serves US economic interests.

First bit of good news for Cuba in months: a Russian oil tanker finally reaching the island, offering a temporary lifeline amid blackouts and a deepening fuel crisis. But one shipment doesn’t fix a structural shortage—unless more tankers follow, the situation remains precarious.

"Cuba successfully resisted SAPs and instead built a robust system of public provisioning to ensure universal access to essential goods, including housing, healthcare and food. This system has been successful at fighting extreme poverty, hunger and premature mortality."

The U.S. claims it’s helping the Cuban people while blocking the fuel that keeps hospitals running and water systems functioning. You can’t claim humanitarian concern while deliberately engineering a humanitarian crisis. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/w...

"One of Castro’s central foreign policy goals was internationalism – the promotion of decolonisation and revolutionary politics abroad. This involved sending troops to fight in wars against colonial or proxy forces on the African continent" elevennamedpeople.substack.com/p/hands-of-c...

"Not only has the administration coerced Venezuela and Mexico, until recently Cuba’s 2 largest fuel suppliers, into halting oil shipments to the island, it has also pressured Central American and Caribbean countries to drop their medical services contracts with Cuba" theintercept.com/2026/03/24/c...

From 1999 to 2020, Cuba maintained a lower infant mortality rate than the US despite far fewer resources and decades of sanctions—driven by a model prioritizing public health. In recent years, however, the strain of COVID-19 and intensified sanctions has contributed to a rise in infant mortality.

Sugar defines Cuba’s history. After the Haitian Revolution, it became a leading producer, shaping colonial rule and policy under Fidel Castro. After the Soviet collapse, the industry contracted rapidly, pushing Cuba towards promoting tourism to replace the revenue once generated by exporting sugar.

Despite far fewer resources, Cuba produces the highest number of doctors per capita in the world by heavily investing in healthcare. That surplus allows Cuba to send thousands of doctors to rural and underserved communities across the Global South—something the U.S. has long tried to undermine.

U.S. Chargé d'Affaires to Cuba Mike Hammer was last week in Italy, where he met with Roberto Occhiuto, the governor of the southern region of Calabria. He pushed Occhiuto to end Calabria’s employment of around 500 Cuban doctors. Occhiuto refused.

Jamaica is ending its agreement with Cuban doctors who helped staff hospitals and rural clinics. Cuba’s global medical missions provide revenue for Havana while filling physician shortages abroad. Without them, Jamaica’s rural health system could face major gaps. apnews.com/article/jama...

"Cuba has similarly deployed doctors in poor countries around the world to deliver health care to populations under-supported by multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and bilateral Western aid." foreignpolicy.com/2026/02/26/u...

"In the era of the Donroe Doctrine, which explicitly demands unquestioned U.S. primacy and resource monopolies in the Americas, the persistence of a sovereign, anti-imperialist project just 90 miles from Florida is an intolerable ideological irritant." fpif.org/the-court-th...