Cuban assemble in Havana for the 2026 May 1 march -- image via the Communist Party of Cuba By Vijay Prashad For more than six decades, the United States has attempted to make the Cuban people pay for their decision to pursue an independent, socialist path. The latest phase of this economic war has targeted the island’s most vulnerable artery: its energy supply. Six months after Washington intensified pressure on countries and companies supplying oil to Cuba, the policy has no

When people think of economic sanctions, they often imagine a mechanism targeting a specific government, specific assets, or a list of names. But the U.S. sanctions regime operates differently and in a much broader way, relying on a phenomenon known as ‘overcompliance’: banks, companies, and platforms around the world sever ties or reject transactions with institutions and individuals from sanctioned countries far beyond what the law strictly requires, simply out of fear of l

Rubio on May 5, 2026 -- public domain image By Daniela López Ferreiro, translated from the Spanish Secretary of State Marco Rubio doesn't speak to the Cuban people: he speaks about the Cuban people. His message on May 20, presented as an offer of help and an explanation of the Cuban crisis, is in reality a carefully constructed piece of political manipulation. The Florida hawk takes real issues, strips them of context, exaggerates certain facts, hides others, and boils Cuba’s

Banner and flag in Cuba -- Taymaz Valley from Ottawa, Canada, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Vijay Prashad In January 2026, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US security—a designation that allows the United States government to use sweeping economic restrictions traditionally reserved for national security adversaries. The US blockade against Cuba began in the 1960s, right after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 but has tig