Cuba: a perfect storm

From September to November 2024, a cascade of disasters, from power cuts to hurricanes and earthquakes, battered socialist Cuba. Now the US presidential election victory of Donald Trump, whose first administration pursued a ‘maximum pressure’ policy to starve the Cuban people, threatens yet more unilateral sanctions to add to the arsenal of economic warfare that the US has unleashed on Cuba for more than 60 years. The international solidarity movement has a duty to defend the Cuban revolution as it navigates this perfect storm. WILL JONES reports.

Shock to the system

On 18 October, Cuba’s largest power plant, the Antonio Maceo Thermoelectrical Centre in Santiago de Cuba, failed, resulting in a nationwide electricity blackout. The Cuban government announced emergency measures to conserve energy and ensure key sectors and emergency services remained online while power was restored to the population, a process which is often prolonged due to Cuba’s relatively decentralised electricity generation. This was the most extensive blackout in Cuba in several years and was ongoing on 21 October as Hurricane Oscar battered Cuba’s eastern provinces with dangerously high winds and torrential rain. Oscar resulted in the deaths of eight people despite the swift response of Cuba’s community-led Civil Defence System.

Hurricane Rafael landed in eastern Cuba on 6 November, with sustained winds up to 140 km/h. Rafael was followed by a 6.8 magnitude earthquake which shook the eastern part of the island on 10 November. These disasters caused widespread destruction and disruption to daily life, with more than 283,000 Cubans evacuated from their homes in advance of Hurricane Rafael. No one was reported dead or missing following Rafael and the earthquake. Nonetheless, the Minister of Economy and Planning Joaquín Alonso reported that the material impact of the events was severe: more than 34,000 homes damaged; 37,000 hectares of agricultural land lost; as well as damage to the electricity grid, hospitals and schools. Alonso predicted that Cuba would not achieve positive economic growth in 2024 due to the disasters.

The breakdown of ageing energy infrastructure is a direct result of the 62-year illegal US blockade of Cuba. A storm of sanctions has been unleashed on Cuba’s energy sector in the past decade by the US: targeting Venezuela with sanctions in 2014 which affected its oil exports to Cuba; 243 new unilateral coercive measures brought by the first Trump administration (2016-2020), including 56 directly against Cuba’s energy sector; and the subsequent Biden administration’s refusal to reverse these sanctions, including those targeting oil tankers docking in Cuba. The US blockade restricts Cuba’s ability to purchase parts needed for repairs, access financing for new infrastructure, and pay for fuel imports. The US even prohibits equipment being exported to Cuba from third countries if 10% of its components are linked to the US.

The US blockade of Cuba is designed to provoke mass civil unrest which can be exploited to push for regime change. It has so far failed in this respect; instead, the economic warfare has succeeded in pushing many Cubans to emigrate to the US, where Cuban migrants have historically enjoyed a privileged status compared to migrants from anywhere else. In July 2024, a Cuban report announced that in 2022 and 2023 over 1 million Cubans – 10% of the population – left the island, the largest migration wave in Cuba’s history.

Hurricane Trump

Trump’s re-election is almost certain to increase Cuba’s woes. In addition to direct sanctions, Trump’s first government actively worked to undermine Cuba’s relations with Latin American and Caribbean states, threatening governments which hosted Cuban medical professionals and attacking Cuba’s alliance with Venezuela and Nicaragua, which Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton dubbed the ‘Troika of tyranny’.

One of Trump’s most pernicious measures was to add Cuba to the US State Department’s unilateral ‘State Sponsors of Terrorism’ (SSOT) list. This strictly debars US entities from having any financial relationship with institutions suspected of trading with, or handling transactions to, those countries on the list (Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria). This is effectively a death sentence for the trade and financial relations of those countries, given the global monopoly power of US capital. President Joe Biden renewed this designation and refused to overturn Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ measures, despite campaign pledges to do so. On 20 November 2024, 18 members of Congress wrote to Biden in a last ditch effort to urge him to lift sanctions and take Cuba off the SSOT before Trump enters office. US solidarity groups are demanding the same.

Trump’s US support base has contradictory demands; his re-election on an anti-immigration ticket is likely to have devastating consequences for Latino people in the United States, including Cuban immigrants. His ‘Agenda 47’ manifesto pledges to launch mass immigration raids and deportations of Latinos, which could affect up to 19 million people (6% of the US mainland population). Trump has also promised to end Temporary Protected Status and Humanitarian Parole, legislation used to grant privileges to Cuban migrants.

Nonetheless, Trump won among 46% of Latino voters in 2024, a 14 percentage point gain compared to 2020; and Cuban Americans gave him more than half of their votes (58%). In Florida at least, Trump’s success is largely thanks to powerful right-wing groups based among older generations of Cuban migrants who are thoroughly integrated into the US ruling class.

The enemy without

Every popular revolution in history has dispossessed the elite benefactors of the old regime; their descendants in exile are typically sheltered by imperialist enemies and form a bridgehead from which to launch counterrevolution. The same is true of the Cuban revolution: the Cuban bourgeoisie and mafiosi who thrived under former US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista were driven from the island after the triumph of the revolution in 1959. These pro-capitalist exiles decamped to the US state of Florida, and their descendants’ overriding mission is the recovery of their ‘birthright’, ie private exploitation of Cuba’s workers, land and resources under the stewardship of US imperialism. Initially, in the 1960s-70s, this reactionary class sought to achieve its goals through violent methods: invasion, sabotage and terrorism. These tactics failed, and the ‘Cuban American’ (read: counterrevolutionary) lobby, exemplified by the Cuban American National Foundation, was established to successfully win even stricter US blockade measures from the 1990s onwards. Explicitly modelled on the Israel lobby, they dominate Florida politics. This right-wing bastion is decisive in the outcome of US presidential elections due to electoral college votes attributed to Florida where 1.2 million Cubans now live.

Trump has named the war-hawk Marco Rubio as his pick for Secretary of State (equivalent to Foreign Secretary). Rubio, a Miami Cuban whose family migrated to the US before the socialist revolution, is one of the most powerful and energetic figures of the counterrevolution lobby. He is virulently anti-communist and has claimed to be the architect of the ‘maximum pressure’ policy implemented during Trump’s first administration. This included:

• the creation of the State Department’s Restricted Entities and Prohibited Accommodations Lists, which blacklisted various Cuban tourism sector enterprises;
• the de-facto closure of the US Embassy in Havana on a pretext of now-debunked ‘sonic attacks’ against embassy staff;
• the banning of individual and people-to-people travel to the island;
• and the addition of Cuba to the SSOT list.

Marcio Rubio has pushed for sanctions to bully countries into refusing the assistance of Cuba’s internationalist medical professionals, which the US State Department falsely claims are being ‘trafficked’ by the Cuban government. On emergency missions and under mutual assistance agreements, Cuba has sent 600,000 healthcare professionals to provide free healthcare for underserved populations in at least 164 countries since the 1970s. Central to Cuba’s medical internationalism is the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Havana, which on 11-15 November 2024 marked its 25th anniversary with a conference of alumni (Counterpunch 29 November 2024). ELAM has trained 31,180 physicians from 120 countries, including 213 Palestinians, for free. Luther Castillo Harry, a graduate of ELAM and minister of science, technology, and innovation in the Honduran government, closed the conference saying: ‘Out of ELAM have emerged and will emerge doctors who will save humanity from barbarism. Or, as leader of the Revolution Fidel Castro said, “Doctors, not bombs!”.’

Rubio has also pushed for yet more US legislation to strangle Cuba, sponsoring such subtly named bills as the Democracia Act, the Force Act (which would make Cuba’s removal from the SSOT list impossible without regime change), the Patria Y Vida Act and the No Stolen Trademarks Honoured in America Act. The last, which was passed on 20 November, bans US courts from enforcing trademarks allegedly ‘stolen’ by the Cuban government, notably the Havana

Club rum trademark, owned by a French company and disputed by Bacardi, formerly a Cuban company whose assets in Cuba were nationalised in 1960.

Counterrevolutionists are salivating following Trump’s re-election. On 17 October Emilio Morales, president and CEO of the Havana Consulting Group, told the Madrid-based Diario De Cuba that Trump’s return will bring: ‘the end of the dictatorships of Cuba and Venezuela… This was a landslide, like [Ronald] Reagan’s victory in the 1980s. If Reagan knocked down the Berlin Wall, Trump will knock down the Havana Wall’.

Such ‘analysts’ predict that Trump may offer a new deal to the Cuban government to lift some sanctions, but only if it accepts terms including: the unconditional release of dissidents within Cuba the US deems to be political prisoners; holding ‘democratic’ pro-capitalist multi-party elections from which the Communist Party of Cuba and organisations of the masses would be barred; and abandoning Cuba’s internationalist support for other anti-imperialist movements and states. This would represent a surrender of Cuba’s sovereignty and victory for US plans to impose another puppet dictatorship in ‘America’s backyard’. The Cuban revolutionary people will never accept such terms.

Fighting the blockade with solidarity

Cuba is not alone in its struggle for sovereignty and socialism. On 30 October the US blockade of Cuba was condemned by the overwhelming majority of countries, representing most of the world’s population, at the United Nations General Assembly. For the 32nd consecutive time, the Assembly adopted a resolution on ‘the necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States against Cuba’, with 187 nations voting in favour. Only the US and Israel voted against this motion, and only Moldova abstained.

Mexico and Venezuela’s state oil companies have continued to supply Cuba with fuel, despite US sanctions; in October, a Cuba-flagged tanker carrying 400,000 barrels of oil departed Mexico for Cuba. In early November, Venezuela also sent a ship bearing 300 tons of aid to Cuba, and a second ship with 200 tons on 20 November. Russia and China also provided emergency assistance to Cuba after the hurricanes and earthquake, with Russia sending 80,000 tons of fuel and $2m worth of equipment. In the United States, supporters of Cuba have redoubled their efforts to get material aid to the island and break the illegal US blockade. The Hatuey Project, a campaign coordinated with The People’s Forum and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, raised over $250,000 in just three weeks in October-November, funds that were used to deliver supplies including 26,000 bottles of cooking oil and 100 electric generators to Cuba. At a moment when ordinary Cubans’ desperate struggles are being exploited by the revolution’s enemies to create a narrative that ‘socialism has failed’, all internationalist efforts to break the blockade must be amplified by Cuba’s supporters. That includes us here in Britain. While the US government and counterrevolution lobby are organised and vocal, we must be more so. Fight back against the lies by spreading the truth of Cuba’s socialist revolution in every political struggle.

FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 303 December 2024 /January 2025