"In Cuba we face a multidimensional aggression of the United States government"

Statement by Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba in the general debate of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly...

in CubaMINREX 26/09/2026

Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba (Minrex)

Mr President of the General Assembly:

Madam Deputy Secretary-General:

In approximately 3 hours it will be exactly 66 years since the phrase of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, in memorable speech on this podium and I quote: “The philosophy of dispossession disappears, and the philosophy of war will have disappeared! Disappear the colonies, the exploitation of the countries by the monopolies disappears, and then humanity will have reached a true stage of progress!”

However, the advance of expansionism, acts of usurpation and conquest; military and economic aggression, is alarming. The U.S. government’s claim to impose peace by force is absurd and unrealizable. Fundamental pillars of international law and the United Nations, such as sovereign equality between States, are under constant attack.

The genocidal crime of Zionism against the Palestinian people, pirate attacks on vessels and extrajudicial executions in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific areas, military aggression against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the war against the Islamic Republic of Iran are new manifestations of this atrocity.

They also reflect the crisis of identity and relevance that has been imposed on the United Nations, including this General Assembly, the most universal, democratic and representative organ of the international community.

We are convinced of the indispensable need to preserve and strengthen the UN, while making it more democratic, effective and closer to the peoples.

In Cuba, as it is known, we face a multidimensional aggression of the United States government, a permanent, abusive and ruthless hostility that lasts almost seven decades. Since January 2026, it has intensified and made itself more cruel and dangerous with the establishment of an energy blockade that, through intimidation and coercion, prohibits all countries from exporting fuels to Cuba, which is equivalent to a naval blockade, typified in international law as an act of war.

Through successive measures, the U.S. government has been adding bans to all countries regarding products and services that cannot be exported or transported to Cuba. More than 7 thousand containers have been stopped in various ports, many of them with food, medicine and medical devices, or even hired by private Cuban companies.

In an unprecedented and unprecedented event, a superpower unilaterally deprives all States of the right to export the product they wish to the country that they wish and comprehensively and sustainably infringes freedom of trade and navigation.

In addition to this, the intimidation of entrepreneurs from various countries to abandon, against their will, their investments and businesses in Cuba; the obstacles and traps to prevent the arrival of absolutely legitimate commercial shipments; the pressures to prevent the flow of visitors and tourists; and the effort aimed at limiting as much as possible the legitimate access of Cuba to financing, technology and markets.

It reaches the height of pressuring sovereign governments to renounce medical services that they requested of us, for the benefit of their respective populations and that provide Cuban professionals with altruism, because the U.S. government opposes such cooperation, without importing the effect or damage on populations that are deprived of free and quality medical care, that is, deprived of an elementary human right. Last Thursday, the State Department, meeting this General Assembly, convened a humiliating meeting specifically with the receiving States to exert pressure and make threats.

According to the Secretary of State, the official policy of the United States is to close to Cuba every valve, exit or survival formula.

The impact of such a iron and ruthless siege has a human face. Economic war is directed against the people. It falls on the Cuban population as a whole. It takes lives, causes individual and collective pain, generates anguish. It is not a “collateral damage.” It is a deliberately designed policy to hurt Cuban families in the most sensitive, to prevent welfare and to hurt the dignity of the people.

It is an act of collective punishment, a crime also prohibited by international humanitarian law. The obvious and immediate goal is to induce a humanitarian crisis in Cuba, which is also a crime.

The U.S. government and the State Department have had to acknowledge the suffering inflicted, but they have the shamelessness and cynicism to insist on blaming the Cuban government. The executioner blames the victim.

They follow the formula defined by the State Department, since 1960, in the infamous Mallory memo, which established as official policy, until today, the overthrow of the Cuban government through economic suffocation and the extreme suffering of the people due to material deficiencies, hunger and despair.

The President of the United States declared on this podium a few days ago that Cuba is a failed state. If so, why then did they have to establish a fuel blockade, why did they establish secondary sanctions, why do they have to threaten, pursue and pressure all the states on the planet? The President of the United States also acknowledged that his government imposes on Cuba the greatest pressure that has ever been exerted. Months before, he had said and I quote, “It only remains to enter and destroy the place.”

The threat of the use of military force against Cuba persists, conduct that constitutes a violation of international law and a serious violation of the San Francisco Charter.

 If materialized, it would constitute a major crime. It would result in the deaths of Cubans and young Americans and enormous destruction. We hope it never happens. Cuba would exercise with all its determination and energy the legitimate right to defend itself. This aggression is accompanied by a brutal media and cognitive war, directed not only against the Cuban people, but also against American citizens and world public opinion. It is characterized by vulgar attempts and riots of interference in Cuba's internal affairs, which is the same another international crime.

They ask us what the United States is looking for with such aggressive conduct, it is a question that usually surprises us, because the representatives of that government have declared without self-conscious their objective of seizing Cuba, of controlling the country, of dominating the economy, that is, of annulling by way of aggression and economic suffocation the national sovereignty for which generations of Cubans have fought since the nineteenth century, first to achieve it and since 1959 achieved full freedom, to defend it

The American behavior rests in the fallacy declared earlier this year that Cuba constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, nonsense that that government repeats impudently. To vainly try to argue, he floods the media through his spokespeople and the publications he hires and pays with mendacious accusations, taking advantage of the growing government dominance of the United States over the large communication platforms. The US President himself repeated this fallacy in this enclosure, a few days ago.

Any minimally informed observer understands the fanciful and evil sense to present a developing nation like Cuba, relatively small and with a modestly performing economy, as a threat to the largest nuclear, military, technological and economic power on the planet.

This Organization and Member States have copious evidence that we are a country of peace, of Cuba ' s efforts for international cooperation, understanding and peaceful settlement of disputes, and of the active role we have always played in supporting the United Nations.

Cuba is not a threat, the blockade is!

Cuba is not a threat, the blockade is!

We have always been and remain ready for dialogue with the U.S. government to try to find a solution to bilateral differences on the basis of seriousness, respect, sovereign equality, observance of international law, without interference in internal affairs, or preconditions. We are open to business and business relationships with American companies as we are with any other country.

We are aware of the immense challenge facing our nation for its safety, its survival, the well-being of the people and the destiny of the Fatherland. We don't face the challenge passively. We do it with firmness and dignity.

On that basis, we are advancing in a process of change, profoundly transformative of the economic and social model, anchored in our historical experience.

On July 30 at the Seventh Session of the National Assembly of People’s Power President Miguel Díaz - Canel said: “In the face of the complex scenario I have described, how to persist in the construction of socialism, how to find the financial and material resources to maintain the social conquests of the Revolution? As in previous stages, particularly complex, such as the Special Period, when under the leadership of the Commander-in-Chief, and subsequently with the leadership of the General of the Army, the economic model was transformed to adapt it to the challenging external circumstances, in the current context we have set out to undertake the transformations that the moment demands, under the leadership of the Party, in a collegiate and democratic way, in consultation with the people, without compromising independence, national sovereignty, or the social conquests of the Revolution.” End of date.

In that session, the National Assembly of People’s Power approved a novel program, with new practices, actors and economic concepts. All this is done within the current Constitution, approved in free and universal referendum; in the conception of our socialist State of law and social justice.

As the leader of the Cuban General Army Revolution Raúl Castro Ruz pointed out, the most important and I quote: “it will be the appropriate and timely implementation, with well-defined priorities and the conscious participation of the people.” End of date.

This process rests on the strength we have built, the potential of our human resources and the determination to respond to the needs of the people with the greatest possible social justice, without giving up on the effort to defend, in the most absolute and energetic way, sovereignty and the right to self-determination.

We know that we have the support of the international community and the solidarity of millions, including more and more American citizens. This is manifested in the repeated demonstrations and pronouncements of support for Cuba and for rejecting abusive aggression. It is expressed in the material solidarity aid that our people receive and that seeks to mitigate the enormous damage to the Cuban economy and society.

That spirit of solidarity and empathy is also expressed with special force among Cubans who reside permanently or temporarily outside the national territory and in their descendants, in particular here in the United States.

Mr President:

We reject the Monroe Doctrine and its Corollaries, as we repudiate any attempt at militarization, intervention or imperialist domination in Latin America and the Caribbean, proclaimed as a Zone of Peace, in 2014, precisely in Havana.

As a small island developing State, we stand in solidarity with our brothers who share a similar condition and with their alert to the worrying and inexorable advance of climate change.

More inclusive governance of new information and telecommunications technologies, particularly disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, is needed.

We reject the application of unilateral coercive measures. We express our support and solidarity to each and every nation that is victims of them.

We reaffirm our solidarity with the Government of Reconciliation and National Unity of Nicaragua.

We reiterate our support for the inalienable right of the people of Puerto Rico to self-determination and independence.

The sister nations of Africa and the Caribbean deserve fair and differentiated treatment, as well as reparations for the horrors of colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade.

We reaffirm our solidarity with the Saharawi people and their right to self-determination.

We reaffirm our support for the one-China principle.

We are convinced that the current course of international relations, of disrespect for international law, contempt of the United Nations, and of imposing the unilateral will of the most powerful on other countries, through intimidation and coercion, is dangerous and untenable. The law of the jungle cannot be the future of humanity.

To prevent such practices, in addition to promoting peace and justice, it was that the generations that preceded us founded the United Nations and, for decades, developed and tried to enrich their activity. Let’s regain our role, today that we may be on time, before the United Nations goes down in history as an unrealized dream of great promises.

In the year of its centenary, let us trust as Fidel Castro Ruz, the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, that, if we fight with determination, a better world will be possible.

Fatherland or Death!

We'll win!

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Cuba stands up to the UN: "We are not a threat, the blockade is"

Cuba's voice resounded firmly on the international stage during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA)...

Writing Cubahora in Exclusive 22/09/2026

Cuban delegation leaves plenary at United Nations in the face of Trump’s lies (Photo: Prensa Latina)

Far from bowing to interventionist speeches, the country’s top leadership and Cuban diplomacy responded immediately, dismantling Washington’s fallacies and reaffirming that the real threat to regional peace is the heightened economic blockade.

During the opening day of the High-Level Segment, the American president resorted to old arguments and hegemonic positions. Overreaching regulatory time, he devoted part of his intervention to extolling his country’s military might and calling Cuba a “failed state,” in an evident attempt to justify a military aggression against the Caribbean nation, located just 90 miles from its shores.

🇨🇺🇺🇸 Cuban delegation leaves the room of the UN General Assembly after statements of Trump pic.twitter.com/xQdH0Cmv6w

— RT Last Minute (@RTultimahora) September 22, 2026

 Faced with this rhetoric of force – exposed a few minutes before the UN secretary general, António Guterres, called for the world for law and peace, and not for coercion – the Cuban delegation left the compound in sign of resounding rejection.

The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, denounced through his account on X the inability of the White House to justify his systematic punishment against the Cuban people. "The lie is the appeal of those who refuse to accept the right to self-determination of the Cuban people," he said.

For his part, the president of the National Assembly of People’s Power, Esteban Lazo Hernández, ratified the strong condemnation of Cubans in the face of the falsehoods exposed in the international body, strongly coining the institutional label that marks the national feeling: Cuba Is Not a Threat, the blockade yes.

A siege that suffocates, a country that resists
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla categorically dismantled slander from the same digital platform. The foreign minister stressed that Washington is unable to digest the fact that Cuba is, and has the right to be, a fully independent and sovereign country.

"None of the falsehoods of the US President. The U.S. at the UN may deny that fact. Cuba is not a threat to the US. U.S. or any country. The economic blockade, including energy encirclement, does threaten Cuba and the rest of the nations. It is an act of genocide and collective punishment. We are a country of peace and we deserve peace," Rodriguez Parrilla said.

International solidarity in the face of abuse

In the midst of the interventionist offensive, the voice of global justice soon manifested itself. The Cuban foreign minister publicly thanked the intervention of the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who during his turn in the General Debate crudely denounced the reality that the archipelago suffers.

Lula expressed before the plenary that "in Cuba, the world observes with horror how a collective punishment is imposed on 10 million people through an illegal embargo." The Brazilian leader also advocated genuine cooperation in the face of hegemonic impositions and military guardianship attempts in the Western Hemisphere.

Cuba thus confirms, once again, that it will not yield to blackmail. With the historic conviction to defend their sovereignty and overcome the ruthless aggression imposed by the U.S. government, the Cuban people continue to march on the path of peace, creative resistance and social justice.

 

 

More flexibility in foreign exchange transactions among economic players

In order to order, expand and energize, in wholesale trade, such operations in foreign currency between companies and forms of non-state management, new regulations accompany in this sense the economic and social transformations in execution...

Fidel Benito Rendón Matienzo in Exclusive 14/09/2026  CUBAHORA

Inter-business and commercial operations at the wholesale level, in foreign currency, has been included as a new source of foreign exchange in the Cuban economy.

This is reflected in Resolution 103/2026 of the Ministry of Economy and Planning (MEP), published this Thursday 10 in the ordinary Official Gazette number 76, along with another of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC), number 102/2026, referring to the Rules for the opening of bank accounts in foreign currency.
The economic and social transformations, approved by the National Assembly of People’s Power on June 18, demanded to update the general bases for the system of management, control and allocation of those currencies.

On the one hand, in a context of restrictions on its availability due to the unprecedented intensification of the US blockade, and on the other, of the expansion of powers granted to economic actors, and greater flexibility and business and territorial autonomy, it was necessary to temper Resolution 140/2025 of the MEP.

As explained to this journalist Susset Rosales Vázquez, general director of Planning and Development of the aforementioned body, the new provision allows that in foreign exchange transactions state entities, forms of non-state management and cooperatives, among others, can operate with greater fluidity, flexibility and autonomy in order to energize the economy.

The priority is given to the exporting and import substitute sectors, in addition to the fact that through direct payments in foreign currencies it is intended to chain and strengthen the productive links, minimizing the exchange rate distortions that exist today.
In turn, the new resolution contributes to the resuppression of raw materials and inputs for the different productions, and the timely access to foreign exchange for the maintenance of productive activities and services, with direct impacts on the supply to the population without having to access the exchange market.

Susset Rosales clarified that even when foreign exchange transactions in inter-business and wholesale trades become the source of these currencies, in retail trade, domestic currency operations continue and only those that are of interest to the country will be approved in USD.
Undoubtedly, this seeks the protection of the population and improve the purchasing power of the Cuban peso, avoiding that access to goods and services is subject to currency tenure and the current volatility of the exchange rate.

That is why the use of the currency is regulated in the interest of re-approval and increasing production of economic actors, and the measure is in line with the strategic objective of de-dollarization and with the monetary policy of the country.
The possibility of foreign exchange payments to the domestic of the economy by international cooperation projects is even extended, as agreed between the parties.

Resolution 103/2026, of the Ministry of Economy and Planning entered into force since its publication on Thursday in the Official Gazette and will be in effect until December 31 of this year.

On the opening of foreign bank accounts by economic actors

Also in conversation with Ian Pedro Carbonell Karell, director of Payment Systems of the Central Bank of Cuba, we knew that according to Resolution 102/2026, referring to the Rules for the opening of bank accounts in foreign exchange, it is intended to relax the existing mechanisms for this purpose.

He mentioned as important and novel elements, authorizing that non-state economic actors can deposit currency in cash in their current accounts, and can order payments abroad directly in their bank, for import or other related to their economic activity, without having to pass that payment process by the importing entity.

That is, the payment mechanism can be done directly with the bank and once it is executed and has the proof of it, then it can be sent to the importer, points out the interviewee.

Ian Pedro Carbonell clarifies that the regulations of the BCC are with a view to accompanying economic and social transformations, by easing the existing regulatory framework for the operation with the currencies of all the economic actors of the economy, so that there are no obstacles in the inter-business and commercial relations of wholesale, and production and services are increased.

With the previous regulations the state company could have its currency account, and that gave it some capacity and autonomy, but by paying a private actor it could not do it if it was not authorized to operate in currency, says the director.

With the lawful income of their business, holders can deposit cash into their checking account, and with their balances they can ask their bank to order a payment abroad, explains the BCC’s director of Payment Systems.

The resolution of this institution will enter into force seven days after its publication this Thursday 10, in the Official Gazette.

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What they did not calculate: our animalization

Laidi Fernandez de Juan

Cuba debate, www.cubadebate.cu

Our conviction as an unbeatable Cuban people tells us that no matter how dark the outlook is, the sun, whatever it may be, will rise every morning

In the midst of this chaotic situation we live in, where survival prevails and resilience, inventiveness and a resigned way of accepting the inevitable predominate, little by little we acquire qualities that we never imagined we could have. Those who surround us to the limit, imposing crude restrictions on us, forcing us into a permanent state of wakefulness which undermines our central nervous system, which is our entire body, they did not calculate the intrinsic nature of the Cuban people: the stubborn force to invent, to come to the surface, to transform mechanisms, things, things that were until then incalculable. This category of resistance does not appear in any manual. It is something that we have been acquiring over many years of shortages and their consequent alternatives.

I am not going to compare one period with another, this crisis with the previous one, nor how much we have sacrificed, because that would weaken the current state of immediacy in the face of the precariousness of our existence.

If half a year ago it seemed enormous to us not to have basic services for 4 or 6 hours a day (water supply, the essential electricity, gas for cooking, digital or fixed telephone connection), we have already reached the point of having these services for a few hours each day, which forces us to a gradual animalization, to develop skills that we never planned or thought possible to develop.

This does not mean that we are pleased or accept the transformations with pleasure, quite the opposite. Everyone's nerves are frayed, and on the surface, with a terrifying irritation that explains why we fight like beasts for the right of the road or for a simple bucket of water. We do it because, among other reasons, nothing is simple or dispensable.

We all need water, food, electricity, gas, medicines at any cost, even if it implies the progressive animalization to which I refer. There are many examples, but I will limit myself to a few.

Although it violates laws of human physiology, we have already developed a certain night vision, as if we were cats or bats. In the shadows for six months, in the early hours of the morning we see silhouettes of the dining room table, we identify the living room armchair and the bedside table without us falling. The ear acquires new capacities, also unimaginable before this war that we fight day by day. We are no longer frightened by the fluttering of some wrong butterfly that cannot find a window through which to get out.

Those impressive moths we call "tataguas", witch butterflies that sometimes sneak into our homes, walk around without us falling on with our brooms, as before. They no longer scare us nor do we believe they are bad omens of things to come. We already have bad things happening.

Mice nibble on the corners of rooms and the edges of skirting boards without much attention to them. Not only because we are exhausted after fighting battles during the day, but because in our new scale of values, feeling (hearing or seeing) rodents or flying beings is not important.

Chicken eggs explode due to the intense heat and lack of refrigeration. I can attest to the noise they make when they burst, but we already know that it is not a bomb that has exploded in the kitchen, but an egg, and although it is a fatality, it is not the end of the world. At least in the world we inhabit right now.

As if we were crocodiles, we bleed very little, or not at all. The other day a very heavy flashlight fell over one of my eyebrows. Under normal conditions, blood would have flowed from the injured brow arch, but not now. As if the body, the platelets and the physiological cascade of coagulation understood that there are no threads or suture needles, no disinfectants or cotton or gauze or light in the polyclinic, the forehead, the eyebrows and the face are all repressed, and not a bump leaves a record of the trauma. We are reptiles, cats, bats.

We are like "wise elephants," "gentle dolphins" or "multicolored butterflies" accepting a new way of life, a way of life which is constantly changing. It may happen that the blessed hour of electricity comes to us in the middle of the night. In a state of constant wakefulness, we don't even gossip. Each member of the family throws himself out of bed with cheetah speed because we know that in a matter of minutes we have to charge the few pieces of equipment we have, cell phones, fans, as well as washing, cooking, cleaning and perhaps ironing even if it is 3 in the morning.

We look like anxious guinea pigs doing everything at once, with frenzy. Then, like sleepy koalas, we spend the rest of the day regaining the tactile sensitivity of a mole when darkness arrives (metaphorical and real).

I am convinced that our oppressors did not calculate that these unusual and unnatural adaptations would allow us to survive. The vast majority of us already belong to the so-called "ordinary Cubans," and we go to the market as if we were members of a team of ducks, geese or ants, in a silent line to get food, dragging carts with wheels, or wooden boxes adapted for such purposes.

No matter how hard, difficult, cumbersome and suffocating our corrosive daily life is, no matter how animalized we are, and no matter how distant hope may be, we are not going to allow ourselves to be defeated.

Translation by NSCUBA (Nova Scotia)

Song: Fidel Arrived

 

 “We know it will be difficult. Yeah, it is. But look: here we are, standing, fighting, not giving up.”

Statements by the President of the Republic of Cuba to the Brazilian press...

Writing "Cubahora" in Exclusive 24/08/2026

President Díaz-Canel at the closing of the International Meeting of Solidarity with Cuba. Photo: Presidency Cuba

The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel offered or an interview to the Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo. During his speeches, the president rejected or that economic transformations represent an abandonment of the process of socialist construction and later affirmed that the US blockade is the determining factor of the difficulties faced by the Caribbean nation.

Díaz-Canel acknowledged the existence of internal difficulties, including bureaucratic problems and delays in certain government actions, but argued that these do not explain the dimension of the current situation.

“I say with all sincerity: even if we had done everything right, without failure, the main cause of what Cuba is experiencing today is the blockade,” he said.

The president explained that the U.S. coercive measures, increased during the terms of Donald Trump, directly affect the availability of fuel and, by that way, electricity generation, water supply, transportation, health services and the functioning of the economy.

He recalled that in the last seven months Cuba only received a shipment of oil from Russia as humanitarian aid, while private fuel imports represent an insufficient amount to cover national needs.

Díaz-Canel also denounced the effect of U.S. actions on foreign companies that maintain commercial relations with Cuba, considering that these measures hinder the arrival of food, medicine, spare parts and other supplies.

He said that currently only a part of the basic list of drugs can be covered and mentioned difficulties in ensuring medical treatments, surgeries and immunization programs.

The lack of fuel has also affected the electric energy system. The president pointed out that Cuba has generation capacity that it cannot fully use due to lack of fuels, a situation that contributes to the prolonged blackouts registered in the country.

Díaz-Canel rejected, however, that Cuba is on the verge of collapse. “There are blackouts, but no blackout has turned off the hope of the Cuban people or broken our capacity,” he said.

In that regard, he stressed the stay of health workers in hospitals and the continuity of educational processes despite difficulties.

The president said that the United States is trying to economically suffocate Cuba to provoke a social explosion that will lead to a rupture with the government and the fall of the Revolution.

Faced with this, he affirmed that the country has no alternative but to resist and reiterated Havana’s willingness to maintain a dialogue with Washington whenever it develops without preconditions and on the basis of respect for sovereignty.

Díaz-Canel said that there are currently contacts between officials from both countries, although an agenda of talks has not been established. “There can be no dialogue under oppression,” he said. On the other hand, when referring to the 176 measures announced, the president express o that these are a result of a development debate.  

 

The measures include greater participation of the private sector, new possibilities for foreign investment and the opening to investments of Cubans living abroad. He explained, the main means of production continue in the hands of the State, while the new economic actors must contribute to the objective of increasing production and generating benefits for the population.

Díaz-Canel expressly rejected that the measures respond to demands of Washington. “The United States has no morals to ask for any concession from us, nor are we willing to make them,” he said. The president insisted that the

During the interview, the president was also questioned about the possibility of a U.S. military intervention in Cuba, in a context marked by threats and pressure measures from Washington. From this administration of the United States we can expect anything,”

When asked what would happen to him personally in the event of a military action against the island, he replied: “If my time comes, it arrived. But it won't be with weakness and cowardice. It will be fighting.” The president reiterated that Cuba does not seek a confrontation and that it maintains a willingness to dialogue with Washington, but without preconditions or subordination to external interests. Díaz-Canel argued that the defense of independence and sovereignty is directly related, under the conditions of Cuba, to socialist construction.

He also referred to the teachings of the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, who “taught us that the setbacks can be transformed into victories and that no enemy, however powerful, is invincible.” We know it will be difficult. Yeah, it is. But look: here we are, standing, fighting, without giving up,” the Cuban president concluded.

Embassy of Cuba in Canada 

Cuba is facing a criminal collective punishment imposed by the United States.

As part of the overwhelming solidarity from the Canadian people, a new petition urge the Government of Canada to oppose the United States illegal policy. Thanks to the Canadian people for actively raising this very important issue, to sign the petition click on the link below.

https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Sign/e-7649

 Two hundred days under siege: The silent asphyxiation of a people

So far in 2026 Cuba has received a single shipment of oil: about 100,000 tons of crude oil donated by Russia, nothing more. More than 1,400 megawatts of installed capacity remain inactive because of lack of crude oil. 

The electrical system is sustained by what the island produces internally: national crude oil, gas accompanying wells and renewable sources, but it is not enough

Raúl Antonio Capote | internacionales@granma.cu

August, 2026

The sun sets over the horizon and the island seems to be shipwrecked in the dark; you can barely see distant glows, fireflies that dot the archipelago, like the position lights of a ship fighting on the high seas in the middle of the storm.

It may seem close in time to January 29, 2026, when U.S. President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order -2,207 words that declared Cuba an "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy" of his country. But for 200 days an entire people has been subjected to unnecessary suffering.

With this argument, the same one that has served to justify interventions in dozens of nations, Trump enabled the imposition of tariffs on any country that dared to sell oil to the island. 

"Cuba will not be able to survive," he declared that night to the press, showing no hesitation. It was not just a threat, the energy siege is not just another coercive measure, it is the turn of the screw of the collar of the garrote torture, it is poking at a wound that has been open for more than six decades.

To understand its uniqueness, it is necessary to distinguish it from the economic, commercial and financial blockade, made official on February 3, 1962, a policy of collective punishment that the international community has condemned on multiple occasions at the UN General Assembly.

The energy fence is something else. 

It is the deliberate interruption of the flow of fuel to a nation which depends on it to make everything work: its hospitals, its water treatment plants, the pumping of water, its food refrigeration systems, transportation, schools.

Undoubtedly, the message of January 29 was clear: no one, under any circumstances, could supply Cuba without confronting the U.S. sanctions machine.

As if that were not enough, on the 1^st of May, Trump signed another Executive Order internationalizing the siege, expanding sanctions on financial institutions and people operating in sectors vital to the Cuban economy. And, in June, the U.S. government sanctioned the state-owned Cuba-Petroleum Union (CUPET), the heart of the island's energy system.

The result: so far in 2026, Cuba has received a single shipment of oil of about 100,000 tons of crude oil donated by Russia, and nothing more. More than 1,400 megawatts of installed capacity remain inactive due to lack of crude oil, the electrical system is sustained by what the island produces internally, that is, national crude, gas accompanying wells and renewable sources, that are not enough.

The blackouts have become prolonged. In many regions of the country, outages exceed 22 hours a day, public transport has been drastically reduced, classes are held remotely when electricity allows.

The Besieged

But the most profound impact is not measured in megawatts, it is measured in human lives: more than 32,800 pregnant women face additional risks from the lack of power that affects health systems.

In the health system, which for decades was the pride of the island and an example for Latin America, hospitals work with generators that consume the fuel that does not arrive, intensive care units operate at the limit, ambulances circulate with extreme rationing.

Desperation has a face: the face of mothers who cannot cook, sick people who cannot refrigerate their medicines, elderly people and children who endure the tropical heat without ventilation.

This energetic fence has predecessors, but none exactly the same. History records sieges that sought to surrender populations due to hunger or cold; for example, the siege of Leningrad, which lasted 872 days and claimed more than a million lives, but those occurred in declared conflicts.

Against Cuba it is different. There are no tanks on the borders, no bombs falling on the cities, it is an asphyxiation administered from a distance, without firing a single shot.

UN human rights experts have described this measure as "a serious violation of international law and a serious threat to a democratic and equitable international order".

The Cuban government has taken it to the United Nations General Assembly, where it has described it as "an act of genocide" and "collective punishment."

These are not rhetorical exaggerations, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines as such acts committed with the intention of destroying, in whole or in part, a national group.

How many generations must suffer the consequences of a policy designed to make life in a nation unviable for genocide to be called genocide?

Those Resisting

And yet, the island has not surrendered, because resistance is, for Cubans, a way of life learned in six decades of blockade.

Cuba has drilled new oil wells and reversed the downward trend in its domestic crude oil production; it has installed more than 50 photovoltaic solar parks that contribute more than a thousand megawatts and generate, in the hours of greatest sunshine, 38% of the energy consumed during daytime hours.

It has recovered 348 megawatts of thermal generation in plants that were out of service. It's not enough, but it's all we have. The neighbors share the generator that works, the candle that illuminates, the little fuel that remains. Solidarity is not an abstract concept in Cuba: it is the only currency that still circulates.

The world watches, the world knows, but the world, for the most part, does not act.

Airlines have suspended their flights to Havana; international companies withdraw their investments; the fear of secondary sanctions, the punishment for trading with Cuba, has paralyzed the international community, but not the solidarity of the peoples.

We arrive at 200 days, a cold, administrative figure, which says nothing about the children who have died and who previously survived without any problem, in a country where infant mortality was less than five per thousand live births, at the level of a few developed nations.

A figure that says nothing about the absence of drugs to deal with cancer, about the old man who died of a curable disease. A figure that says nothing about children who grow up with the constant murmur of generators as a soundtrack to their childhood.

We are facing a decision taken in Washington, with all its consequences, while Washington fails to assume any responsibility.

Cuba has been under the energy siege for 200 days, on top of 66 years under the blockade. Cuba has existed for centuries against all odds, defying the logic of the empires that have wanted to bend it.

And yet, darkness is not the end. The archipelago resists the onslaught of bad weather, while sailing transfigured in those expeditionary boats that came to liberate their land from Spanish colonialism -small boats that, in the light of dawn, merge into a single and immense yacht.

Translation by NSCUBA (Nova Scotia)

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