On Oct. 18, Cuba’s power grid fell victim to Tropical Storm Oscar. The only working power plant in Cuba at the time was the Antonio Guiteras Plant, and when it went down, the island descended into darkness. While electricity slowly reappeared throughout the island, this blackout is not an isolated incident but the latest symptom of Cuba’s decades-long isolation.
In 1962, after the Cuban revolutionary government made clear it was not another U.S. puppet regime, the John F. Kennedy administration instituted a trade embargo. Fortunately, the Soviet Union provided a safety net by importing massive amounts of Cuban sugar. Cubans did not have access to many consumer goods or industrial parts, but the population was able to manage. This would change with the fall of the Soviet Union.
Following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the early- to mid-1990s were a time of immense suffering for Cuba, later dubbed the Special Period. Cuba quickly lost most of its trade partners. Essential goods were unavailable, fuel was scarce and the average Cuban’s caloric intake plummeted. During this time, the United States tried helping its neighbor 90 miles to the south by alleviating the Cuban people’s suffering … right?
Wrong. The United States has continued strangling the Cuban economy since the early 1960s. The Torricelli Act of 1992, passed by the U.S. Congress under pressure from the right-wing Cuban American National Foundation, effectively banned any ship that traded with Cuba from touching American soil for six months — with the island sitting right under the world’s biggest consumer society, most vessels crossing the Atlantic chose to dock at the United States, leaving Cuba largely isolated from world markets. The subsequent Helms-Burton Act of 1996 took the blockade to another level — it prevented most companies from being able to deal with Cuba altogether and introduced new large-scale sanctions.
Despite their decades-long history of destabilizing Latin America through partnerships with right-wing military dictatorships and death squads, the United States framed their further sanctions against Cuba as a move in support of human rights. It is clear their policies were an opportunistic attack on a Communist state, with human rights being a convenient excuse. The United States took the Special Period as an opportunity to squeeze its Communist foe, believing that enough agony would cause former President Fidel Castro’s downfall.
Once again, wrong. The Cuban people’s resiliency helped the economy rebound with positive growth rates from 1994 onward, and the Castro regime would remain in power with popular support. Back in the United States, this only hardened the bipartisan consensus, with Cold War fossils continuing to prioritize anti-communism over human rights. Cuba resisted imperialism in 1868 during the Ten Years War, raised arms against Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship in 1953 and defeated the Yankee invasion in 1961 — U.S. lawmakers were fed up with Cubans disobeying subjugation.
But Cuba’s isolation from much of the world’s markets has kept it fragile. Even in times of relative prosperity, Cubans fear the inevitable economic crisis that could strike at any moment. Donald Trump renewed the aggressive blockade against Cuba in 2017 and added Cuba to the State Sponsors of Terrorism list in 2021, and the Biden State Department continued to add additional sanctions. After the global economic crisis caused by COVID-19, Cuba spiraled into another devastating crisis, with some people I spoke to claiming its harm has eclipsed that of the Special Period. Prices have skyrocketed, and mere survival on a government salary has become very difficult. During my time studying in Marianao this summer, I saw administrative workers without the tools to pave roads or clean streets. Buildings that collapse stay in ruins because concrete is nowhere to be found. The crisis in Cuba is not an issue of popular will or capability — it is a crisis of access to the international community, and the current blackouts are just another consequence of the imperialist U.S. blockade.
The world recognizes the blockade is, as Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez has called it, “an act of genocide.” Of the 190 United Nations members that voted to end the embargo against Cuba this week, only one country joined the United States in voting against the resolution and it just so happens to be a fellow settler-colonial state facilitating a U.S.-funded genocide — Israel. U.S. aggression toward Cuba has one main target — the Cuban people. They are not collateral damage but the main target of the U.S. sanction regime. The United States has employed similar tactics of destabilization and chaos cultivation in Venezuela, Iran, Nicaragua and other disobedient countries in the Global South, but none as comprehensive and long-term as Cuba.
Some groups in the United States have organized solidarity networks with Cuban communities, such as the People’s Forum and the Hatuey Project. Last week, the People’s Forum published an open letter in The New York Times calling on the Biden administration to reverse the blockade. Other groups, such as the Latin America Working Group and the Washington Office on Latin America, are spreading awareness in the United States of the blockade’s harmful effects. These groups, however, are not amplified by the mainstream political process. Instead, hawkish anti-Communist activists in Miami hold most of the political clout and continue to push for an aggressive policy toward the Cuban government.
The Cuban people defied U.S. colonialism with the revolution’s victory in 1959, and generations later, the United States continues to level an all-out assault on everyday people. Much like the French making Haiti suffer for its dream of liberation, the United States refuses to forgive Cuba’s yearning for freedom. More than 60 years have elapsed and Cuba’s commitment to socialism persists — they have made their choice, and nearly every other country recognizes their self-determination. It is long past due for the United States to untangle its noose wrapped around Cuba and finally allow it to breathe.
Nathan Sommer is a senior double-majoring in history and Latin American and Caribbean American studies.
Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the staff editorial.