Former United States President Donald Trump’s tightening of the 60-year-long US blockade of Cuba — which is maintained by current President Joe Biden — has caused a devastating humanitarian crisis throughout the country.
Ed Augustin, writing for Drop Site News, describes the harsh daily realities faced by millions of people as a result of US policies towards Cuba.
Augustin quotes Ramone Montagudo, a retired history teacher in Havana: “When it comes to food and medicine, we’re living through an extraordinary difficult situation. The country has always been sanctioned, and we used to get by. But Trump filled in the gaps.”
Cuba has been sanctioned for longer than any other country in history, since its 1959 revolution.
Cuba’s crimes in the eyes of Washington?
First, the revolution overthrew the US-installed Fulgencio Batista dictatorship that had previously guaranteed US capitalist interests.
Second, it expropriated US landowners, such as the United Fruit company, to carry out an extensive land reform benefitting peasants, which constituted the majority of Cubans.
US policy remained fundamentally unchanged since then, which aimed to “weaken the economic life of Cuba … to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government” — in the words of former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Lester Mallory, in April 1960.
“But almost a decade ago the Obama administration softened sanctions on the island and restored diplomatic relations with Havana,” writes Augustin, “admitting that over half a century of immiserating the island had failed to oust the communist government.
“The economic rebound was swift.”
But in the final weeks of the Trump administration, the US put Cuba back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, without a shred of evidence, and restored harsh sanctions.
False promise
One of Biden’s pre-election promises in 2020 was that he would “reverse the failed Trump policies that inflicted harm on Cubans and their families”. But once in office, writes Augustin, he “one-upped Trump by going further than the previous administration in attacking Cuba’s tourism industry — the main engine of the island’s economy”, and kept Cuba on the state sponsors of terrorism list.
The Biden administration barred tourists that had previously visited Cuba from being eligible for visa-free travel in the US. Now, people must apply for a tourist visa at a US embassy, pay US$160 (A$236) and potentially wait months for an appointment.
As a result, European travel to Cuba halved.
“The terror designation, together with more than 200 sanctions enacted against the island since Obama left office, has pulped the Cuban economy by cutting revenue to the struggling Cuban state,” writes Augustin.
The US blockade cost Cuba an estimated US$4.87 billion (A$7.21 billion) in losses between March 2022 and February last year.
“The one-two punch of the hardened sanctions and the pandemic have ushered in a grim new reality for Cubans,” writes Augustin. “For many, power outages can now last more than 12 hours a day. With pharmacy shelves barren, the price of medicines on the black market has slipped beyond the reach of much of the population.”
“Without money to repair old infrastructure, hundreds of thousands now live without running water.”
Mass emigration
Cuba’s dire situation has forced many to give up hope. More than 10% of the population — more than a million people — left the country between 2022–23, according to official figures.
Mass emigration is just one result of US economic warfare against Cuba.
As Loloya University Chicago sanctions expert Joy Gordon told Drop Site News, “there has been a shift [in US policy] towards minimizing visible harm to civilian populations since the sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s, which resulted in widespread malnutrition and epidemics”.
“There’s a strategy of trying to offload the enforcement to the private sector,” Gordon said.
“US policy has created conditions that make it commercially compelling for the private sector to withdraw from whole markets, resulting in severe and widespread economic harm, but in a form that is not directly attributable to US policy makers.”
Augustin cites the US designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism as a prime example, which caused many businesses to immediately pull out of the Cuban market.
“Very few banks want to work with Cuba now,” a Havana-based European businessman told Drop Site News.
Another businessman, who no longer sells high-tech equipment to the Cuban health ministry, told Drop Site News that the terrorism designation was a game changer: “If there is a trace of a Cuban account, it will be blocked.”
The flight of businesses and exclusion from the global financial system has left the Cuban government with a shortage of hard currency required to buy necessary goods.
Government food rations — essential for Cubans — are “fraying”, writes Augustin. Domestic agriculture has collapsed in recent years due to a lack of seeds, fertiliser and petrol, forcing the government to import all their basic subsidised goods.
“But there’s not enough money to do that,” writes Augustin. “Last year the government eliminated chicken from the basic food supply. Last month the daily ration of bread available to all Cubans was cut by a quarter. Even staples like rice and beans now arrive late.”
An Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report, published in April, found that food insecurity in Cuba is rising. Vulnerable groups, such as older people, pregnant people, children and people with chronic illnesses, are the most affected.
“When food rations are funded by the state, it’s no surprise that if you bankrupt the state, food insecurity would increase, particularly for those who do not have family abroad to send remittances,” Gordon said.
The US saw some evidence of the unrest its policies aim to create, said Gordon, when hundreds protested in Santiago de Cuba in March about long power outages and food shortages.
Despite US imperialist policies cruelly causing widespread suffering among Cubans, it is not widely reported in the US.
[Read Ed Augustin's article at Drop Site News.]