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The United States is strangling Cuba.

Since February, President Trump has blocked all oil heading to the island, and threatened to impose tariffs on countries that attempt to circumvent the embargo. The move comes in the context of Trump’s attacks on Venezuela and takeover of the country’s energy sector — Venezuela was Cuba’s main oil supplier, shipping roughly 30,000 barrels a day.

The consequences of Trump’s actions, and the toll of this embargo, have been devastating. In addition to rolling blackouts, basic services, including sanitation, have ground to a halt in some parts. The embargo is also affecting the water supply, which relies on electricity for its pumps, and preventing farmers from harvesting and transporting produce.

And the situation has been devastating for public health: hospitals are having to ration power and even postpone medical procedures.

What’s happening in Cuba is just the latest chapter in over six decades of imperialist attacks. The U.S. first imposed a trade embargo on Cuba in 1962 in response to the 1959 Cuban Revolution, and the expropriation of national and foreign capital. Since then, both Democratic and Republican presidents have maintained the blockade and at times tightened it, as Democratic president Bill Clinton did with the Helms-Burton Act of 1996.

In February, Trump began tightening the screws even more. This is part of his “Donroe Doctrine”: reasserting U.S. dominance across the Western Hemisphere, and strengthening the country’s imperialist grip on Latin America.

The goal is clear, as it has been since the start of the blockade: regime change, paving the way for capitalist restoration, allowing in foreign capital, and rolling back the gains of the Cuban Revolution. For the Trump administration, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Cuba’s heroic legacy of anti-imperialist defiance and socialization of private property must be erased.

On this episode of the podcast, sociology professor Remo Erdosain explains the history of the embargo on Cuba, including its origins as a response to the Cuban Revolution, and the motivations behind Trump’s aggressive moves. Remo also describes the devastating human toll of the last six decades.

We also discuss the role of the so-called “progressive” governments of Latin America, like Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico and Lula in Brazil — leaders who talk big game when it comes to solidarity with Cuba, but ultimately haven’t challenged the U.S.-imposed strangulation of the island.

To defend Cuba against these imperialist attacks, we must show our strongest solidarity with the Cuban working class, who must lead this fight. Importantly, we must do this without supporting the political program of the Diaz-Canel administration, which has taken a repressive turn and implemented measures of capitalist restoration already, at the expense of the working masses.

The most urgent task is to break the oil blockade, and a mass movement of students and workers could force the hands of Sheinbaum and Lula in particular. In the U.S., we need an anti-imperialist movement that rejects the oil blockade and takes actions like strikes, and mobilizations to denounce the attacks on Cuba.

The struggle of the Cuban people isn’t some isolated event. It’s the struggle of the global working class, and it’s deeply connected to Trump’s other attacks, both domestically and abroad.

As we always say, an injury to one is an injury to all, and the Cuban people need our solidarity against U.S. imperialism.

Listen to the episode on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, on YouTube.

Support this podcast on Patreon

The post #AllThatsLeftPod: The U.S. Is Strangling Cuba appeared first on Left Voice.

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