The Crisis in Cuba is No Accident – The Spectator
The imperial approach to U.S. policy relations with Cuba never truly ended. For more than a century, the United States has treated Cuba less like a sovereign nation and more like a colony.
Decades after the U.S. embargo began sanctioning trade in 1959, Cuba is facing an extreme humanitarian crisis. The Trump administration has inflicted an oil blockade and economic attack, causing prolonged blackouts, shortages of medical supplies and fuel, food shortages and deteriorating public infrastructure. A U.N. expert warned that these U.S. sanctions are worsening the conditions in Cuba, while Human Rights Watch documents arbitrary detention, travel restrictions and economic and social rights abuses. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to frame its attack on Cuban citizens as a justified defense of democracy and security.
Trump’s January 29 executive order declared a national emergency and threatened tariffs on countries supplying oil to Cuba, deepening the crisis in a country dependent on imported fuel. Mexico soon suspended shipments, and the U.S. began intercepting vessels bound for Cuba. Following the removal of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela cut ties, severing a major oil supply. Limited allowances for oil resale have provided minimal relief.
Blackouts have left families without electricity, slowed transportation and disrupted water and sanitation systems. Schools have canceled classes. Cuba’s long history of prioritizing social protection through free, universal, comprehensive healthcare has reached a breaking point due to the energy crisis. Hospitals have canceled surgeries and treatments like chemotherapy and dialysis, pharmacies lack essential medications and ambulances are grounded due to fuel shortages. Infant mortality rose 148% from 2018 to 2025.
Cuba needs reliable fuel, food access, medical supplies and emergency humanitarian support if it is to stabilize and recover. While outdated infrastructure and reliance on imports have constrained domestic recovery, the current crisis is deeply tied to decades of U.S. sanctions and escalating economic pressure and isolation.
The U.S.-Cuba relationship has long been shaped by intervention and domination, and the modern crisis cannot be separated from the long history of U.S. imperialism in Cuba. In the early 1900s, the U. S. occupied Cuba and intervened repeatedly, driven in part by economic interests such as sugar. U.S.-backed support for Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship continued until the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro, after which the U.S. imposed an embargo and severed diplomatic ties.
The U.S. backed Batista because he aligned with U.S. strategic interests, ignoring repression and corruption. Washington later justified attacks on Castro by pointing to socialism, communism and nationalization of foreign-owned property.
Castro’s expansion of universal healthcare and education helped establish Cuba as a prominent socialist model in the Global South. At the same time, his rule was also characterized by political repression and limits on civil liberties, which complicates his legacy.
After the Soviet Union’s collapse, Cuba lost vital economic and political support, but preserved key gains in public health, including universal healthcare and high life expectancy. Even under strain, it maintained a model centered on collective welfare and resilience. Obama-era reforms lifted some restrictions, but the embargo remained, and many changes were repealed under Trump.
U.S. policy has repeatedly treated Cuba’s sovereignty as conditional, relying on sanctions to force political change at the expense of individuals, families and children on the island. Recent enforcement has escalated pressure on Cuban leadership, including the indictment of former leader Raúl Castro and demands for President Díaz-Canel to step down, alongside continued sanctions and an oil blockade. No government should have the right to impose severe shortages, economic collapse and humanitarian suffering on a population in the name of political pressure
As a columnist on policy issues of affordability, access to basic needs and politics in Seattle, I wanted to make the connection between justice locally and international solidarity. Collective liberation depends on people coming together from across borders to demand change and challenge injustice. If we want housing, healthcare, food security and dignity in Seattle, we must also oppose inhumane policy abroad. The imperial tactics of U.S. policy toward Cuba never truly ended, and no nation’s freedom should depend on another people’s deprivation and suffering. End the U.S. economic warfare on Cuba.