On 7 March at the Shield of the Americas Summit in Doral, Florida, US President Donald Trump expressed the ambition of the US ruling class to re-colonise Cuba and restore capitalist control over the island: ‘As we achieve a historic transformation in Venezuela, we’re also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba’.
His audience was a rogues’ gallery of Latin America’s right-wing leaders: Argentina’s Javier Milei, Bolivia’s Rodrigo Paz Pereira, Chile’s José Antonio Kast and Honduras’ Tito Asfura. Cooperating with US militarism across the continent in the name of combatting ‘narco-terrorism’, this coalition of sellouts is helping to reassert the Monroe Doctrine – exclusive US imperialist domination of the Americas. Having already twisted the arm of Venezuela on 3 January by bombing Caracas, murdering over 100 people and kidnapping its legitimate President Nicolás Maduro and First Combatant Cilia Flores, Trump is determined to force Cuba into a similar position of duress.
The US has waged economic war on Cuba for 65 years, in an attempt to create the conditions for regime change. This ‘silent genocide’, formerly dressed up as an ‘embargo’, has broken into the open. No fuel has been delivered to the island since shortly after the attack on Venezuela. On 29 January Trump signed an Executive Order imposing a total oil blockade, threatening to impose tariffs on any country that directly or indirectly supplies oil to Cuba.
The effects of this escalation have been brutal. Cuba produces only around 40% of the 100,000 barrels of oil per day it needs, so imports are vital. The energy system itself is in a state of severe disrepair as the blockade prevents Cuba importing the parts it needs to repair ageing infrastructure. Blackouts have become a gruelling regular experience for Cuba’s 10 million people. On Monday 16 March, the entire country was plunged into a 29-hour-long blackout caused by lack of fuel. No electricity means schools and workplaces are closed, and hospital treatments must be delayed. Socialist planning and the indefatigable struggle of the Cuban people have allowed Cuba to continue to offer free healthcare, education and housing to all Cubans despite the blockade which has cost Cuba over $130bn according to UN figures. Facing increasing isolation, Cuba’s system is being pushed to the limit.
During these dark hours, Trump imperiously declared to a press conference, ‘I believe I will have the honour of taking Cuba’. Trump’s crudeness may shock even his imperialist allies, but this is their blockade too. Tankers shipping fuel to Cuba continue to be intercepted by the US military. British forces are participating in this piracy. On 19 March, the Royal Navy reported that it was stalking the Russian-flagged tanker Anatoly Kolodkin, thought to be carrying 730,000 barrels of oil to Cuba; the tanker is under British, EU and US sanctions.
Key to the US’s plans is the Miami-based network of right-wing Cuban exiles. After the 1959 revolution overthrew their patron, the US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, Cuban landowners, gangsters and capitalists were dispossessed of their private property by the communist revolution. Their descendants in Florida support US imperialism in a bid to reclaim their ‘birthright’. At the same press conference Trump name-dropped certain exiles ‘who made a fortune in sugar. You know, the Fanjul family. They want to visit Cuba again. They haven’t been there in about 50 years.’ The Fanjuls owned sugar plantations in Cuba until they were nationalised by the revolutionary government; their heirs Alfonso and Pepe donated $1m to Trump’s election campaign. They own Fanjul Corp, the world’s largest sugar cane refiner with four sugar mills and 10 refineries in six countries. The Fanjuls have a 35% stake in the Central Romana plantation in Dominican Republic, where $1.5bn is generated annually for its owners by the toil of Haitian migrants earning $3 per day. This is the ‘freedom’ they want for Cuba.
Cuba has always been willing to negotiate with the US and has said that this must be based on respect for sovereignty. Cuba’s President and First Secretary of the Communist Party, Miguel Díaz-Canel, announced on 13 March that the Cuban government is engaged in high-level talks with representatives of the US government: ‘These conversations have been aimed at seeking solutions, through dialogue, to the bilateral differences that exist between the two nations.’ Trump says Cuba must ‘make a deal before it is too late’; the goal is capitalist restoration. On 16 March the Cuban deputy prime minister Óscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga stated that his government is prepared to allow Cubans residing in the US to operate businesses in key sectors of the economy. Trump’s ultra-reactionary Secretary of State, the Cuban-descendent Marco Rubio, rejected such an offer as ‘not dramatic enough. It’s not going to fix it. So we’ve got some big decisions to make.’ The head of US Southern Command told a Senate hearing on 19 March that the US military is not actively preparing to take over Cuba. But the violence that lies behind Trump’s gangster-like rhetoric is shown in Venezuela and Iran.
End the blockade of Cuba!
