U.S. pressure on Cuba is entering a new phase of escalation. Economic sanctions, financial restrictions, and limits on energy supplies are worsening the situation on the island.
In this interview, Salim Lamrani, a specialist in relations between Cuba and the United States, analyzes the consequences of the blockade, Washington’s motivations, and the regional political context.
How do you assess Cuba’s current situation in the face of increasing U.S. pressure?
Cuba is going through an extremely difficult period, probably the most complex since 1959, apart from the 1962 crisis. Never before had U.S. pressure, aggression, and hostility toward the island reached such levels.
It is important to remember that Washington has imposed an economic blockade for more than six decades that affects every sector of the Cuban population. During his first term, Donald Trump significantly tightened these sanctions.
Between 2017 and 2021, he imposed 243 additional coercive measures. That amounts to a new sanction every five days for four years. These measures directly targeted Cuba’s three main sources of revenue: tourism, remittances, and international medical cooperation.
What happened afterward under the Biden administration?
The Biden administration did absolutely nothing to change this policy. It also maintained an extremely serious decision made by Trump in January 2021: Cuba’s reinstatement on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism.
This is a unilateral list created by the U.S. State Department and completely lacking in legitimacy. One need only remember that Nelson Mandela remained on that list until 2008, even after serving as president of South Africa.
The consequences for Cuba were immediate: more than one hundred international banking and financial institutions severed ties with the island. This greatly complicated foreign investment and further worsened the economic crisis.
You speak of an unprecedented escalation. Concretely, what does that mean?
The new Trump administration has pushed hostility to unprecedented levels, particularly through the oil blockade.
Between December 2025 and April 2026, only one oil tanker entered Cuba, representing the equivalent of just twelve days of national consumption. And when we talk about fuel, we must understand the concrete consequences for daily life.
Cuba’s electrical system depends on oil for 50% of its operation. This means paralyzed hospitals, suspended surgeries, insufficient transportation, difficulties accessing drinking water, closed schools, and serious problems with waste collection.
At present, around 100,000 patients are waiting for surgery, including 11,000 children. In some regions, power outages can last up to thirty hours.
These are unilateral, inhumane measures that are completely contrary to international law.
Why have the United States maintained this policy for so many decades?
Cuba represents a symbol in Latin America. Unlike other countries, Cuba’s main strategic resource is not material but symbolic. Cuba succeeded in challenging the world’s leading power in its own “backyard” and in building a different society, with free education, universal healthcare, access to culture, and sovereignty over its natural resources. That is precisely what the United States has never accepted.
Cuba demonstrated that it was possible to follow an alternative path, even as a small island with limited resources and under intense external pressure. It showed that it was possible to regain national control over resources and build a sovereign project.
This represented an extremely dangerous precedent for Washington because it could inspire other Latin American countries. Historically, the United States has always feared the “demonstration effect.”
Donald Trump recently stated that he wants regime change in Cuba. How do you interpret those remarks?
I believe Donald Trump must understand one fundamental thing: Cuba is an independent and sovereign country. Cuba’s destiny depends exclusively on the will of the Cuban people. No U.S. president has the legitimacy to decide the island’s political future.
And no Cuban worthy of the name should call for sanctions against their own people. No one can demand the economic suffocation of their own population.
Washington often justifies these sanctions in the name of human rights. What is your response?
If the United States truly cared about human rights in Cuba, it would immediately lift the economic sanctions. The main obstacle to the well-being of the Cuban people is precisely this blockade.
Its concrete impact must be understood: last year alone, the cost amounted to $7.55 billion, or $20 million per day. With that same amount, Cuba could guarantee essential goods for the entire population for six years. Since their imposition in 1960, the sanctions have cost Cuba more than $170 billion, and over 80% of the Cuban population was born under this state of siege.
Moreover, the latest measures have caused a decline in the country’s three main sources of revenue: tourism fell by 60%, family remittances by 40%, and international medical cooperation by 20%.
All of this directly affects the population.
You also mentioned pressure on Cuban medical missions. What is happening?
U.S. pressure is extremely intense. For example, the U.S. ambassador to Cuba even traveled to Calabria, Italy, to ask regional authorities to terminate an agreement with Cuban doctors. These are around 300 professionals who are essential to the local healthcare system.
This illustrates the level of diplomatic interference: a U.S. ambassador traveling to another country to demand the end of a medical cooperation agreement.
What should the international community do in response to this situation?
Political courage is needed. Russia has already shown one possible path by sending oil to Cuba. Other oil-producing countries should do the same. Brazil, Colombia, and China have the necessary capacities to help the island and resist the logic of might makes right.
Historically, the Cuban people have shown solidarity with Latin America, Africa, and Asia. It is time for the world to return some of that solidarity. The Cuban people are not asking to interfere in the internal affairs of the United States. They are simply asking for the right to decide their own destiny in a sovereign manner.
Cuba only wants the right to choose how to organize its society, free from foreign interference.
Salim Lamrani holds a PhD in Iberian and Latin American Studies from Sorbonne University, and is Professor of Latin American History at the Université de La Réunion, specializing in relations between Cuba and the United States. His latest book in English is Cuba, the Media and the Challenge of Impartiality.
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1 Comment
You are an idiot if you believe that the Cuban government is the “hero” in this picture knowing full well that
since this revolution has existed, Cuba has become the world’s beggar. It has done nothing with its infrastructure, its agriculture and anything that moves a country forward. Instead it extends its hand like a beggar on the streets. Once Cuba is given “ anything of substance”, it sells it to other countries not to make a profit to help its people but to line the regime’s pockets. Yes! The US has an embargo on Cuba Yes! If you do business in Cuba you will not be doing business in America. Spain and Canada are a fistful of countries that do business in Cuba. Do they do business in America? Yes! America is not Cuba’s problem. Cubas problem is the communist regime who castigates its people if they ask for freedom. A normal Cuban citizen cannot breathe in Cuba. They cannot express themselves. They cannot have a business. Not even farmers can turn a profit. The Cuban government strangles them in every which way. Cubans get their chicken from Kentucky. As in the US state of Kentucky. That’s an amazing embargo. It works so efficiently that Cuba cells more than half of the donations given to them and the profits go into bank account to rich millionaire Cuba. What kind of a “ strong and proud Country” defying its bully neighbor to the north and standing strong against tyranny devalues its own currency and allows ONLY American dollars to sell or buy anything on the Island. They bellow in sorrow at what they do not have to give to the Cuban people yet those same items ( milk, bread, cooking oil, TV’s, tampons, propane tanks etc. ) are sold in stores that only accept American dollars while the average Cubans salary is 10 pesos a month. You can buy anything! Everything’s available. It’s not that there isn’t anything. It’s that you need American dollars to have it. What an amazing revolution! What an incredible show of strength to the world defying the most powerful country in the world! Do you know what else is for sale in Cuba? Dignity! Is that the fault of America as well?