On Tuesday, United States President Donald Trump had a good laugh with members of the press in the US state of Iowa as he issued a rather serious decree regarding the short-term future of Cuba: “Cuba will be failing pretty soon. Cuba is really a nation that’s very close to failing.”
To be sure, this is not the first time that Trump has predicted the downfall of the Caribbean island nation, which the US has effectively been trying to destroy for no fewer than 67 years – ever since the triumph in 1959 of Cuba’s communist revolution that overthrew the brutal right-wing dictator and US buddy Fulgencio Batista.
This time around, however, the threat carries a bit more weight in light of the Trump administration’s abduction earlier this month of Nicolas Maduro, the leftist president of Venezuela.
To date, the US has not been held accountable for this utterly illegal and patently batty act, which Trump on Tuesday invoked as alleged proof of Cuba’s impending demise: “You know, they got their money from Venezuela. They got the oil from Venezuela. They are not getting that any more.”
One would hope, then, that other countries – particularly the self-declared allies of Cuba – might step up to defend the island against US predations or at least credibly register their opposition to imperial impunity.
Instead, all Cuba has really gotten are some perfunctory professions of support – such as from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who, like her ostensibly leftist predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has perfected the art of pretending to counter US machinations while doing exactly what the gringos want.
Following recent reports that Mexico had halted a scheduled oil shipment to Havana on account of US pressure, Sheinbaum has repeatedly insisted that the business of shipping oil is a “sovereign decision” and that Mexico remains “in solidarity” with Cuba.
Speaking evasively at a press conference, the Mexican leader reflected on her country’s history of providing oil to Cuba for “humanitarian reasons”, owing to the US embargo that, she reminded her audience, has been in effect “for many years now” and has resulted in “shortages”.
Indeed, when I last visited Cuba in 2022 – incidentally just in time for the 60th anniversary of US sanctions on the island – staples like coffee and milk were in short supply.
The nation that had for decades been renowned for its free healthcare, medical humanitarianism and international deployment of meticulously trained doctors was now suffering a dearth of basic medications – which meant that the employees of the pharmacy I went to after executing an epic crash while jogging on Havana’s seaside promenade simply shrugged apologetically at the sight of my bloodied knees and sent me on my way with a prescription for soap and water.
The same prescription had been issued by a 43-year-old Cuban named Eraudis, who had witnessed my fall from his perch atop the seawall just next to a plaque commemorating Leonard Wood, the former US military governor of Cuba who had supervised the promenade’s construction in 1901 and had also served as governor-general of the Philippines.
As if we needed any further imperial irony, it turned out that Eraudis hailed from none other than the Cuban province of Guantanamo – site of the eponymous illegal US penal colony and torture centre – and that his own two legs had been blown off by a landmine outside the US base when he was 19.
He apologised that he could not carry me home due to his legless state and coaxed me out of my own state of panic – no doubt a greater act of “solidarity” than suspending oil shipments to Cuba while claiming “humanitarian” motivations.
Of course, it’s not only Mexico that’s letting Cuba down. Pretty much the rest of Latin America has opted to sit on the fence as Trump goes about seeking to engineer the island’s definitive “failure”.
Ditto for much of the rest of the Global South. On Tuesday, the same day that Trump engaged in friendly nation-wrecking banter with journalists in Iowa, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs took to its English-language X account to call for the “immediate lifting of blockade and sanctions on #Cuba”.
China pledged to “continue to support and assist Cuba” and reiterated its belief that “under the strong leadership of the party and government of Cuba, the Cuban people will tide over the difficulty”.
No offence to the Cuban people – who for almost seven decades have exhibited extraordinary resilience – but it’s not so easy to “tide over the difficulty” when you’re a tiny island in the crosshairs of a schizophrenic megalomaniac who happens to be in charge of the global superpower.
Also on Tuesday, the Cuban News Agency reported that “solidarity groups” in India had “expressed their support for Cuba” during an event held in Kolkata.
As per the report, the programme “included a minute of silence in homage to the revolutionaries and citizens who lost their lives in the struggle against imperialist forces in the region”.
Now, just as the struggle has become more critical than ever, it remains to be seen whether any of Cuba’s professed allies will stick their necks out to keep the country from “failing”.
In the event it does fail – and Trump manages to swing regime change in a place that has resisted for so long against all odds – it’s safe to say that nowhere is safe from imperial designs.
What is needed right now is some real solidarity – because if Cuba fails, it’s nothing less than a global failure.
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