On Saturday, members of the Nuestra América (Our America, in English) Convoy converged in Havana, Cuba. The convoy aimed to transport over 20 tons of food, medical supplies, and solar panel equipment.
The convoy consists of individual supporters like Irish hip-hop group Kneecap and online political commentator Hasan Piker. It also includes anti-war organizations such as CODEPINK and the Democratic Socialists of America.
This international convoy developed from a broader movement of solidarity with Cuba. In response to the recent escalation of US economic sanctions on the island, members of the convoy transported humanitarian aid. The convoy was originally inspired by the recent Global Sumud Flotilla, which aimed to convey aid to Gaza. But what started as another flotilla grew into a convoy to carry aid by air and sea.
Leading up to the convoy’s convergence, 11 million Cubans faced a power blackout resulting from the US oil blockade. After a series of localized blackouts, the national electrical grid finally collapsed, endangering millions of Cuban people. Many have consequently deemed the blockade a form of “collective punishment” by the US.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel stated that the oil shortage and lack of electricity jeopardized tens of thousands of surgeries. Even before the national blackout, there were complications in completing basic household tasks, such as cooking, and accessing essentials like food and medicine.
After each blackout, electricity has been recurrently restored across the country. Still, as the US blockade continues, energy sources are uncertain. This is why, among other forms of aid, the Nuestra América Convoy brought solar panels and generators.
But the intense US sanctions causing blackouts and shortages in Cuba are nothing new.
An economic history
President Donald Trump is only the most recent in a decades-long line of presidents (and administrations) committed to sanctions on Cuba. The 1959 Cuban Revolution, which empowered communist revolutionary Fidel Castro, inspired ensuing US sanctions in the 1960s. The US used these sanctions as a mechanism to pressure the Cuban government into political and economic reforms.
This motive was clear from the outset: In a 1960 cable also known as the Mallory memorandum, a then-secretary of state called for a policy of “economic dissatisfaction and hardship” on the island. By creating a context of scarcity and desperation, the US could mobilize Cubans to overthrow their government.
Trump is publicly proposing a US ‘takeover’ of Cuba today. Previously, he has used his executive power to deem Cuba an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security. The “national emergency” Trump declared is the ostensible rationale for increased sanctions and added tariffs on countries supplying Cuba with oil. For example, countries like Mexico and Venezuela have been Cuba’s main sources of oil.
The US embargo doesn’t just prevent trade between the US and Cuba, but it also threatens other nations into compliance. Under US pressure, Mexico has been hesitant to send assistance.
These long-term sanctions have been internationally unpopular for decades. For over thirty consecutive years, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly has called for an end to the US embargo on Cuba.
Still, the US furthers its interventions, regardless of the immense consequences that the Cuban people face. The complications of the financial acts of importing and exporting translate to material shortages and disruptions to everyday life.
The US continues to push for regime change. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is a particularly outspoken proponent of regime change in the Trump administration. Just days ago, Rubio explicitly stated that Cuba needs to “get new people in charge.”
As a Cuban-American himself, Rubio has fixated on the island throughout his political career. His advocacy for regime change predates the Trump administration’s most recent, direct interventions in Cuban trade. (Funnily enough, despite the vehement anti-communism he attributes to his parents fleeing Castro’s regime, Rubio’s family actually fled under the rule of US-supported Fulgencio Batista.)
When the Trump administration escalated in Venezuela—from blocking oil tankers to abducting President Nicolás Maduro—it was with the knowledge of the nation’s close ties to Cuba. (Rubio was reportedly considering how to wield US intervention in Venezuela against its economic partner, Cuba.) The US was aware that US-backed regime change in Venezuela could induce a similar fate in Cuba. This exact fate has long been a US objective.
Playing a long game
The US has sought control over Cuba for over a century. Even in the 19th century, the idea of acquiring Cuba from imperial Spain was met with enthusiasm. After several failed attempts to buy the island, the US interfered in Cuba’s fight for independence by entering the Spanish-American War.
In the 1890s, the US was in an especially imperialist era, acquiring territories like the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. After being freed from Spanish dominance in 1898, Cuba was subject to US military rule until 1902. The US conditioned the withdrawal of its troops on Cuba’s agreement to the Platt Amendment. This amendment permitted US intervention in Cuban affairs and mandated Cuba’s leasing of land to the US for naval bases.
Later, US-Cuba relations flourished under the US-backed military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. US corporations gained increasing control over the Cuban economy. In the late 1950s, the US owned 75 percent of arable land on the island and dominated Cuban industry. (It’s worth mentioning that Batista’s regime also murdered tens of thousands, cultivating immense opposition. His secret police force, the Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities, received training from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).)
Thus, when Fidel Castro and fellow revolutionaries challenged the Batista regime in 1953, the US sold millions of dollars’ worth of arms to the Batista-led government to quell the rebellion. (It was only after the US decided to end these sales that the rebels won.)
Now with Castro in power, the US spurned agrarian reform and the nationalization of industries in Cuba. Castro’s platform fundamentally changed Cuba. It limited large landholdings and redistributed land to thousands of the island’s peasants, enacting expropriation with proffered compensation.
(The US rejected the offer and refused to negotiate, claiming unfair compensation. This is likely because the offered compensation was based on the landowner’s reported value, sourced from tax filings. Intentional undervaluations had previously meant that landowners would pay less in taxes. Now, they meant that compensation for the land was also undervalued.)
In opposition, the US imposed a partial trade embargo on Cuba in October 1960. (By the next year, the US severed all diplomatic relations with the island nation.) This is where the sanctions began, developing alongside plans to overthrow Castro: the CIA trained and equipped Cuban exiles to do just that. Known as the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion, 1,500 armed Cuban exiles stormed the island’s coast. They were ultimately defeated by the Cuban armed forces.
After this failure, the US drafted new plans to unseat Castro and, later, developed several plots to kill him. Operation Mongoose, for example, was a series of CIA-backed sabotage efforts, including bombing attacks and assassination attempts. There were also proposals (known as Operation Northwoods) of false flag attacks on the US itself, which could be blamed on Cuba to stoke support for war.
All this, despite Castro’s widespread popularity and success as a leader in Cuba. Under his leadership, Cuba was pursuing free education and healthcare. After just two years of revolution, illiteracy was at a new low of 3.9 percent in 1961. The previous illiteracy rate was over 20 percent. 707,000 Cubans had been taught to read and write in a mass campaign for literacy.
Still, US economic warfare continued to develop, as existing sanctions grew into a complete blockade in 1962, prohibiting all US exports to Cuba. The US also aimed to financially isolate the island from the rest of the global economy. Not dissimilar from today, the US pressured allied nations to follow suit and penalized countries attempting to aid Cuba.
Ultimately, the US forced other nations to choose between trade with Cuba or trade with the US, and most nations chose the latter.
Between people and power
Reviewing this history seems to clarify current US policy motivations when it comes to Cuba. The US appears less concerned with democracy or peace, and more concerned with anti-communism and profit-seeking.
Despite all that the US has inflicted on Cuba, the rhetoric of a ‘terrorist’ Cuba remains. In January 2021, Trump renewed his designation of Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism.” Many in the current administration criticize Cuba’s protection of US political dissidents, such as the late Assata Shakur of the Black Panther Party.
Meanwhile, Cuba is widely known for sending international medical assistance to nations in need. Hundreds of thousands of its medical professionals have served abroad. Knowing this, it seems fitting that the international Nuestra América Convoy traveled to Cuba to deliver aid.
In the absence of international leadership heeding popular sentiment, everyday people across the world are stepping up and showing solidarity. (And, after this convoy and the Global Sumud Flotilla, who knows how people will continue to send international aid when domestic governments fail to act?)
The targeting of Cuba, like other US interventions under the current administration, demonstrates the US’s immense influence as a global force. It appears that, almost unilaterally, the US decides which countries can receive what. In a world where one country has that power, it might be about time to consider if it (or, really, any country at all) should.
