Yves here. Medea Benjamin provides a vivid and distressing report of the intensifying distress in Cuba produced by the US oil blockage. It’s hit the point where going to work and provisioning are becoming close to impossible. Please circulate widely.
Sadly the fact that the Cuba sanctions are illegal, by virtue of not being approved by the UN, is not even deemed worthy of mention. The US succeeded long ago in normalizing what ought to be seen as rogue conduct.
By Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace. and co-author, with Nicolas J.S. Davies, of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict
Marta Jiménez, a hairdresser in Cuba’s eastern city of Holguín, covered her face with her hands and broke down crying when I asked her about Trump’s blockade of the island—especially now that the U.S. is choking off oil shipments.
“You can’t imagine how it touches every part of our lives,” she sobbed. “It’s a vicious, all-encompassing spiral downward. With no gasoline, buses don’t run, so we can’t get to work. We have electricity only three to six hours a day. There’s no gas for cooking, so we’re burning wood and charcoal in our apartments. It’s like going back 100 years. The blockade is suffocating us—especially single mothers,” she said crying into her hands “and no one is stopping these demons: Trump and Marco Rubio.”
We came to Holguín to deliver 2,500 pounds of lentils, thanks to fundraising by CODEPINK and the Cuban-American group Puentes de Amor. On our last trip, we brought 50-pound bags of powdered milk to the children’s hospital. With Trump now imposing a brutal, medieval siege on the island, this humanitarian aid is more critical than ever. But lentils and milk cannot power a country. What Cubans really need is oil.
There were no taxis at the airport. We hitchhiked into town on the truck that came to pick up the donations. The road was eerily empty. In the city, there were few gas-powered cars and no buses running, but the streets were full of bicycles, electric motorcycles, and three-wheeled electric vehicles used to transport people and goods. Most of the motorcycles—Chinese, Japanese, or Korean—are shipped in from Panama. With a price tag near $2,000, only those with family abroad sending remittances can afford them.
Thirty-five-year-old Javier Silva gazed longingly at a Yamaha parked on the street. “I could never buy one of those on my salary of 4,000 pesos a month,” he said. With inflation soaring, the dollar now fetches about 480 pesos, making his monthly income worth less than ten dollars.
Cubans don’t pay rent or have mortgages; they own their homes. And while healthcare has deteriorated badly in recent years because of shortages of medicines and equipment, it remains free–a system gasping but not abandoned. When my partner Tighe had an asthma attack, we went to the clinic and within minutes, he was breathing in albuterol mist from a nebulizer. No insurance forms. No bill. Just care — delivered with competence and a smile. That’s what health care looks like when it’s treated as a human right.
The biggest expense for Cubans is food. Markets are stocked, but prices are out of reach—especially for coveted items like pork, chicken, and milk. Even tomatoes are now unaffordable for many families.
Holguín was once known as the breadbasket of Cuba because of its rich agricultural land. That reputation took a severe hit this year when Hurricane Melissa tore through the province, destroying vast areas of crops. Replanting and repairing the damage without gasoline for tractors or electricity for irrigation is nearly impossible. Less food means higher prices.
Production across the economy is grinding to a halt. Factories can’t function without electricity, and many skilled workers have given up their state jobs because wages are so low. Jorge, whom I met selling bologna in the market, used to be an engineer at a state enterprise. Verónica, once a teacher, now sells sweets she bakes at home—when the power is on. Ironically, while Marco Rubio claims he wants to bring capitalism to Cuba, U.S. sanctions are crushing the very private sector that most Cubans now depend on to survive.
I talked to people on the street who blame the Cuban government for the crisis and openly say they can’t wait for the fall of communism. Young people told me that their goal is to leave the island and live somewhere they can make a decent living. But I didn’t meet a single person who supported the blockade or a U.S. invasion.
“This government is terrible,” said a thin man who changes money on the street—an illegal but tolerated activity. But when I showed him a photo of Marco Rubio, he didn’t hesitate. “That man is the devil. A self-serving, slimy politician who doesn’t give a damn about the Cuban people.”
Others put the blame squarely on the United States. They point to the dramatic improvement in their lives after Presidents Obama and Raúl Castro reached an agreement and Washington eased many sanctions in 2014–2016. “It was the same Cuban government we have now,” one man told me. “But when the U.S. loosened the rope around our necks, we could breathe. If they just left us alone, we could find our own solutions.”
The only way Cubans are surviving this siege is because they help one another. They trade rice for coffee with neighbors. They improvise—no hay, pero se resuelve (we don’t have much, but we make it work). The government provides daily meals for the most vulnerable—the elderly, the disabled, mothers with no income—but each day it becomes harder as the state has less food to distribute and less fuel to cook with.
At one feeding center, an elderly volunteer told us he spends hours every day scavenging for firewood. He proudly showed us a chunk of a wooden pallet, nails and all. “This guarantees tomorrow’s meal,” he said—his face caught between pride and sorrow.
So how long can Cubans hold on as conditions worsen? And what is the endgame?
When I asked people where this is leading, they had no idea. Rubio wants regime change, but no one can explain how that would happen or who would replace the current government. Some speculate a deal could be struck with Trump. “Make Trump the minister of tourism,” a hotel clerk joked, only half joking. “Give him a hotel and a golf course—a Mar-a-Lago in Varadero—and maybe he’d leave us alone.”
Who will win this demonic game Trump and Rubio are playing with the lives of eleven million Cubans?
Ernesto, who fixes refrigerators when the power is on, places his bet on the Cuban people. “We’re rebels,” he told me. “We defeated Batista in 1959. We survived the Bay of Pigs. We endured the Special Period when the Soviet Union collapsed and we were left with nothing. We’ll survive this too.”
He summed it up with a line Cubans know by heart, from the great songwriter Silvio Rodríguez: El tiempo está a favor de los pequenos, de los desnudos, de los olvidados—time belongs to the small, the exposed, the forgotten.
In the long sweep of time, endurance outlasts domination.
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Keep an eye on how Cuba copes. They are our future.
As living conditions in the West deteriorate over time, what some of us call part of the Jackpot, Cuban style coping will become the new normal. Furthermore, even if some magical pony technological energy breakthrough does happen, who is to say that the extant elites won’t suppress it in favour of their continuing grip on power?
Mantengase seguro!
In retrospect the first country to be ‘Gazafied’ was Libya (maybe Iraq), then Syria, then Gaza, now Cuba, with the brutality escalating each time. In 30/40 year’s time, it might be France, Germany, the UK, ‘politically unreliable’ parts of the US, who knows, why not?
I have a feeling Cuba may be the first country to go fossil-free, showing the world the way.
I was able to go to Cuba during the Obama years for a bike trip. While the cities are full of old 50″s cars converted to diesel, the rural areas still have a fair number of folks who get around by drawn cart and bikes. They will manage somehow. The people I met were some of the friendliest I’ve encountered oversees, even after they discovered I was from the US. What we are doing is just evil personified. “Little Marco” and his Miami backers are the worst.
I really so dislike and resent nearly every domestic and international US policy under Trump.
The effects, and reaction resentment, seem to grow geometrically. Not even through 13 months….
To me, the amazing part is how Russia, China et al are doing so little about it. It seems like an ideal opportunity to poke a finger in the GAE’s eye for not much effort, without much hazard of things going sideways.
I hate to sound harsh, but did you miss that the last time Russia, then the USSR, tried Doing Something on Cuba, we almost had a nuclear war?
Look at a map. Cuba is 90 miles from the US. What do you propose that Russia do in a very clear area of US dominance?
According to TASS Russia announced today they will send oil and oil products to Cuba as humanitarian aid.
I guess we’ll soon see how the blockade works this time.
Will we take a page out of the Israeli playbook and just block any humanitarian aid coming in, Oil or food?
Wonder if Russia will try to force a UN resolution vote just to force the US to veto it.
https://tass.com/politics/2085601
‘…”In the near future, it is planned to deliver oil and oil products to Cuba as humanitarian aid,” the embassy told the Izvestia daily…’
Yeah, we’ll see. planned in near future does not sound very promising. I haven’t seen anything from Kremlin or MoFA yet.
Thanks, JonnyJames for the link to the TASS article. Sounds like vague promises at this point.
So much for BRICS solidarity too, at least so far.
Mexico has a long history of ties with Cuba and of independence from the US when it comes to its foreign policy vis a vis Havana. But they can’t risk sending oil now unless the US gives them permission to do so; too much at stake for Mexico’s national security and economic interest. Mexico and Canada were the only countries from this hemisphere that didn’t break diplomatic relations with Cuba in the early 60s, when the US pressured everyone to do so and expelled Cuba from the Organization of American States.
Also, in 1962 the US established a naval blockade of Cuba. That is not the case this time around, at least not yet. Perhaps they haven’t done so because a good chunk of the US Navy is distracted in the Middle East. But it is clear that China and Russia looked the other way (beyond a few diplomatic platitudes) when the US took control of Venezuela and kidnapped Maduro, and it doesn’t seem like they will try to go against Trump and Rubio when it comes to this new, extreme version of the now traditional American policy towards Cuba.
Could you please provide a link to the TASS report? I can’t find anything about this on their website. Only very general declarations of solidarity and talk about bringing back to Russia the Russian tourists stranded in Cuba. Thanks!
Sorry. It’s the one above provided by JonnyJames.
When asked about this, Peskov confirmed that Russia is in contact with Cuban authorities but that the specific nature of the help can not be discussed in public, understandably. According to Peskov Russia would not like to escalate the situation.
As Yves says above, Cuba is deep inside US sphere of interest, and short of kinetic conflict there’s only so much Russia can do.
I’d like to see Angola sending a tanker or two by the way of Cuba, escorted by South African frigates.
Thanks, Polar Socialist.
Your wish of seeing Angola and South Africa helping Cuba at this dire juncture is clearly based on the fact that Cuba stepped up during the Cold War and supported both nations (and Namibia), including doing all it could to help South Africans defeat apartheid, and of course intervening in Angola in 1975 on the side of the MPLA, a decision that Fidel Castro knew wasn’t going to make the Soviets very happy; he then convinced the Soviets to help although they did it only reluctantly; see historian Piero Gleijeses for a great history of that conflict and of Cuba’s involvement in Africa–.
Cuba’s military presence in Angola preserved that country’s independence against South African, Anglo-American and Western intervention; plus it was a key factor in the demise of apartheid.
The MPLA heirs are now in power in Luanda and are benefiting from the vast oil richness of that country. They can’t find any oil for Cuba though.
Here is Mandela talking about his relationship with Cuba and his gratitude to Cubans:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE8yfmPiodI/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5_Zx4v02sY
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/environment/2026/02/11/energy/charcoal-solar-panels-cuba/
Sending oil and oil products is not the same as sending nuclear armed missiles. Same about sending solar pannels…
Probably the expectation would be that if US will block such shipments, this will not be disclosed to the US public since it could not be explained or justified.
Solar panels are a feel good gesture. There is absolutely no way China can get enough in to make a difference.
And on top of that, gas and oil are necessary for transport. Cuba lacks the base of electric vehicles and grid capacity to operate on solar even if China could miraculously get enough in. Cuba is also out of jet fuel, severely limiting how many and what type of flights can come in.
So you have actually proven the point.
What could make a difference is sending in tankers of oil. The US has been blockading tanker deliveries. Neither China nor Russia has send a convoy of military ships escorting tankers to do that.
Perhaps I have missed it but I have not read much about countries shipping or flying in basic humanitarian goods such as medical supplies, baby formula, solar units and the like. Is the US blockade that tight or is it that countries do not want to draw the ire of Trump by delivering any aid at all?
Mexico has been helping as two ships filled with humanitarian supplies docked in Cuba today, but Mexico can’t/won’t ship oil or gas yet.
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/world/2-mexican-navy-ships/X3RNXUHIHQ35ZOFKUTH6KAJCTQ/
Although not nearly enough, Mexico is sending some humanitarian aid. No more oil/gas shipments though.
https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/2-mexican-navy-ships-laden-humanitarian-aid-dock-130097762
The only two countries, that I am aware of, that have provided Cuba with humanitarian assistance in recent weeks are Mexico, which sent two boatloads of food and basic medical supplies that are scheduled to arrive today, and China, which has just sent a shipment of rice. Once again, most of the world watches on as another nation is subjected to a near-total siege.
There is no end to the lawlessness, cruelty, and sadism of US foreign policy. Genocide, and wars of naked aggression, supporting terrorist head–choppers, provoking nuclear-armed states etc. The Orwellian euphemism of “sanctions” should be avoided in general, it should be called economic warfare, starvation-siege warfare. And, I know, how quaint, but it is flagrantly illegal.
Not that atrocities of historical proportion have not happened before, the illegal carpet-bombing of SE Asia by the NIxon/Kissinger regime is a big example. But even they didn’t go this far with Cuba.
As many have predicted in recent years, a declining empire will do reckless things to maintain hegemony. Not to sound dramatic but, the US appears to be following a Samson Option: do as we say or we’ll blow up the world.
More than one person has asked why Russia or China don’t do more to help. If they sent ships to deliver fuel, food etc. and tried to defy the US blockade, what would the unhinged emperor and his incompetent cabinet do? Are we willing to go to the brink?
Russia’s reaction to the attempted assassination of Vladimir Putin has been relatively mild. If they didn’t want to confront the US over that, they won’t risk ii for Cuba, so close to the imperial homeland.
One person was quoted as saying the Cuban government was bad. Perhaps it is. I have no way of knowing. It does occur to ma that were it not for sixty years of sanctions and dirty trick the Cuban government might not look so bad. I have no way of knowing that either, but I suspect I may not be far off.
If Russia decides to send fuel and whatever else it chooses to send as humanitarian aid, is the US prepared to stop it. I can think off-hand of a number of bad outcomes should it come to that. But one must keep in mind that the DC Bubble and Echo Chamber is flush with fools, ignoramuses, knaves, neocons, Marco and Donnie. What could go wrong?
It certainly seems that little Marco and his slithering syndicate have deciphered the strings to the Dons ego and has been dangling a potential Trump Havana Plaza as a carrot, with deceptively misleading state policy. However, the morally despicable and destructive sanctions and blockade have been wreaking havoc since the 1960’s and was codified into US federal law in the 1990’s(Clinton), i.e., “the Helms-Burton Act”. There has been no honest effort to repeal this abhorrent act, other than the rare empty hypoxic distracting rhetoric. Blinded by their arrogance, they lack the moral clarity to engage honestly.
Meaning emerges from context, and “context always matters”. E.g., the “internal mismanagement” trope, argued and presented without reconciling the causal effects of almost seven decades of the sustained sanctions/blockade, demonstrates the deceptive and shameful blame shifting tactic often used by an aggressor, and highlights the unequivocal fact that honesty and trustworthiness are not in this empires DNA.
It would be good to know if there was anything we, as ‘normal’ people, could do about this. In the case of Gaza an infrastructure fairly quickly arose on social media by which Palestinians could be ‘vetted’ to ensure they weren’t scammers and then money sent to them via various safe means, and then of course there was also Palestinian Action, the Gaza Flotilla.
A quick Google search reveals some similar things but I’m not sure which of these organisations are legit and trustworthy.
I guess the American people as as captive and under siege as the Cubans, if one is to analyze structures, means, and ways. Until they unshackle themselves, they will continue to be used by the US Oligarchic Moloch, thumping around the world and asking for the blood of babes.
This is so awful. Rubio is bottom of the barrel.
There is a flotilla (presumably modelled on the flotilla to Gaza) attempting to break the blockade. You can donate and follow its progress here: https://nuestraamericaflotilla.org/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/cuba-flotilla