‘They would have to kidnap millions or wipe us off the map….they would be haunted forever by the ghost of this small archipelago that they had to pulverise because they could not subdue. No, imperialists, we are absolutely not afraid of you. And we do not like, as Fidel said, being threatened. You will not intimidate us.’
– Miguel Diaz Canel, President of the Republic of Cuba
16 January 2026
In the face of the US assault on Venezuela, Cuba has reaffirmed its solidarity with the Bolivarian Republic. Nearly 500,000 thronged the streets of Havana to mourn the death of the 32 Cuban heroes who died in Caracas defending Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro from the US forces that kidnapped him. Yudelkis Ortiz, representing Cuba’s Communist Party declared: ‘Our heroes knew, as every Cuban knows in the depths of their conscience, that on this island we are not born to live on our knees, but to die standing up if necessary, defending justice.’
The US is escalating its war on Cuba and Venezuela alike. On 10 December, the US seized a Venezuelan linked oil tanker which was destined for Cuba. This was no coincidence. Venezuela provides Cuba with approximately 35,000 barrels of subsidised oil per day. After the bombing of Caracas on 3 January, Trump warned: ‘There will be no more oil or money going to Cuba – Zero! I strongly suggest they make a deal, before it is too late.’ On 29 January, Trump imposed a complete oil-blockade on Cuba, a genocidal act aimed at strangling the Cuban revolution to death as the Cuban people already face immense blackouts and disruptions to essential infrastructure.
These threats against Cuba are not new. Cuba has been under constant attack since the 1959 revolution. Bringing about ‘hunger, desperation, and the overthrow of [the] government’ – as expressed by Lester D Mallory, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs in 1960 – has always been the stated aim of the 64-year US blockade of Cuba.
In the face of this, revolutionary internationalism has always been a cornerstone of the Cuban Revolution, exemplified by its deep fraternal ties with Venezuela. There is a long, shared history between the sister nations, from José Martí to Simon Bolivar fighting for liberation against Spanish colonialism to Venezuelan guerillas taking to the mountains in 1967, inspired by Cuba’s rebel army in the Sierra Maestra in Cuba a decade prior.
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro shared a longstanding embrace. Upon Chavez’s release from prison in 1994 after his involvement in a failed coup attempt, Fidel, seeing his revolutionary potential, invited Chavez to Havana. Chavez’s landslide presidential victory began a crucial collaboration with Cuba that has shaped the region ever since. In 2000 both nations signed an accord with Venezuela providing oil at preferential prices in exchange for 20,000 Cuban medical professionals and the creation of the ‘Barrio Adentro’ free health care system for the working class and poor, for the underserved barrios of Caracas to far flung rural and indigenous communities.
Having experienced decades of US assassination and destabilisation attempts, Fidel played a major role in defeating the 2002 US-backed coup against Chavez, phoning him to advise ‘don’t quit, don’t resign.’ Fidel used his influence to rally international support and popular mobilisation against the coup, spreading the message that Chavez had not quit. In response, thousands of Venezuelans came down from the hillsides to surround the presidential palace, constitution in hand. Rank and file soldiers disobeyed orders and returned Chavez to the Miraflores presidential palace to cheering crowds. The experience radicalised Chavez, who deepened the anti-imperialist collaboration with Cuba.
In 2004 the two nations founded ALBA, the Bolivarian alliance for Latin America, in direct opposition to the imposition of the US Free Trade Area of the Americas. Pledging regional integration to foster mutual aid and south-south trade, over the last 20 years ALBA has run literacy programmes, treated over 7 million cataract patients, created a regional bank and established PetroCaribe which between 2005-2019 provided subsidised oil for goods and services.
As more nations joined including Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, ALBA was attacked; the US navy resumed patrols of the Caribbean and backed the 2009 coup against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya shortly after Honduras had joined ALBA. As the US tightened the screw against Venezuela and Cuba, PetroCaribe was forced to pause operations in 2019 due to a near-total US oil blockade crippling Venezuela’s oil production. Today, with the right-wing recapturing power in Ecuador and Bolivia, official ALBA membership has shrunk, yet grassroots cooperation has continued to flourish via ALBA Movimientos, a network of social movements across the continent.
In the face of imperialist aggression, the relationship between Cuba and Venezuela remains strong. Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodriguez has vowed to continue ‘the free exercise of self-determination and national sovereignty’ reiterating that Venezuela’s relationship with Cuba has always been based on ‘brotherhood, solidarity, cooperation and reciprocity’. The war on Venezuela is also a war on Cuba and on the anti-imperialist struggle for socialism worldwide.
As Fidel declared in 2013, ‘If we want to save the revolution of Cuba, the revolution of Venezuela and the revolution of all the countries of the continent we have to come together and we have to support each other solidly because alone and divided we will fall.’ Hasta la Victoria Siempre!
