For more than six decades, the United States has been suffocating the Cuban people by imposing anachronistic and inhumane economic sanctions. These measures affect the most vulnerable sectors of the island’s population, particularly the sick, children, the elderly, and pregnant women, and have a dramatic impact on all sectors of Cuban society. Retroactive and extraterritorial in nature, they violate the most basic principles of international law. Since 1992, they have been unanimously condemned every year by the United Nations General Assembly.
Imposed in 1960 with the aim of overthrowing the government of Fidel Castro, these sanctions have been steadily reinforced by successive U.S. administrations, particularly under the presidency of Donald Trump. During his first term, Trump imposed 243 new unilateral coercive measures – 50 of them in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic – against the Cuban people, targeting the island’s main sources of revenue, namely medical cooperation, remittances from the diaspora, and tourism. Thus, from 2017 to 2020, the White House imposed on average one new sanction per week for four consecutive years.
In 2025, the sanctions cost Cuba 7.5 billion dollars, an average of 20 million dollars per day, 15,000 dollars per minute. This amount is equivalent to the electricity consumption of Cuba’s 10 million inhabitants for six years. With the same sum, Cuba could ensure the supply of basic necessities for the entire population for six years. Since their imposition in 1960, the sanctions have cost Cuba a total of 170 billion dollars, and more than 80% of the Cuban population has been born under this state of siege.
On January 29, 2026, the Trump administration issued a presidential decree designating Cuba as an “extraordinary and unusual threat to the national security of the United States,” imposing tariffs on any country that delivers oil to Cuba. As a result, the island – already severely affected by the economic blockade and repeated natural disasters – has been plunged into an extremely difficult situation, deprived of the fuel vital to its economy and essential services. In Cuba, the electrical system, which powers the drinking water sanitation network, hospitals, and schools, depends heavily on oil supplies.
Cuba is not experiencing a crisis: it is the victim of an economic crime perpetrated by the United States for decades. The international community must reject this illegal economic and energy stranglehold that is suffocating the island and provide urgent assistance to the Cuban population, which is facing an extremely grave humanitarian situation.
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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