20 May 2026
Cuban workers celebrating May Day, Cienfuego, 2016. The placard quotes Raul Castro, “A people united is the guarantee we will always be able to cry out ‘Long Live Free Cuba’”. Photo Workers.
Cuba is under threat of attack by the USA, its near neighbour Between seizing the elected president of Venezuela and bombing Iran, US President Trump has blocked oil supplies and is preparing military intervention.
Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez, posted on X, “Without any legitimate excuse whatsoever, the US government builds, day after day, a fraudulent case to justify the ruthless economic war against the Cuban people and the eventual military aggression.”
Interventions
For more than 60 years, successive US governments have tried to strangle Cuba’s economy. USA has implemented financial, economic and commercial blockades, as well as staging military and political interventions. Other nations face US sanctions for daring to trade with Cuba.
This stranglehold has increased dramatically from this January of this year: it intensified on May Day. Trump’s oil blockade has created an energy crisis and tremendous suffering for the Cuban people.
“Cuba neither threatens nor desires war.”
Ending his post, Rodriguez said, “Cuba neither threatens nor desires war. It defends peace and prepares itself to confront external aggression in the exercise of the right to legitimate self-defense recognized by the UN Charter.”
Just as in Iran, crude US actions have not brought about political change. As a result, the likelihood of overt action is rising. US surveillance flights around Cuba have increased and a build-up of US forces in the area is planned, according to the New York Times.
Indictment
On 18 May the US Treasury launched new sanctions against 11 Cuban officials. Meanwhile four US Congress members are calling for the indictment of Raul Castro, past president and past military commander of Cuba, to be indicted. Raul Castro will be 95 years old next month.
The Trump administration used a federal indictment against President Maduro of Venezuela as a pretext for invading the country, seizing Maduro and his wife. It followed up with demands on the remaining government on how their country should be run.
Accusation
In the build up to that invasion, Trump repeatedly accused the Venezuelan government of being a threat to the US. Senior officials of the country were sanctioned and US troops built up nearby.
In reality, USA is the threat to peace and the independence of nations in the Caribbean. President Trump is following in the footsteps of his predecessors, going back more than a century.