{"id":318648,"date":"2026-07-27T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T11:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=318648"},"modified":"2026-07-22T09:30:03","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T08:30:03","slug":"dont-look-away-from-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/07\/dont-look-away-from-cuba\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Look Away from Cuba"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An elderly woman walks down a street in Havana during a nationwide power outage on 10 Jul 2026. It was Cuba’s second nationwide blackout in five days\u2014part of what officials describe as overlapping energy and economic crises worsened by a six-month U.S. fuel blockade\u2014that pushed the electricity grid to collapse. Photo by Yamil Lage\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

The indictment of Raul Castro is the latest in a string of escalations aimed at building pretext for a U.S. invasion of the island nation.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

14 Jul 2026\u00a0<\/em>– The federal indictment of Ra\u00fal Castro on decades-old charges is just the latest escalation in a long-running U.S. campaign to justify invading Cuba.<\/p>\n

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The case against the 95<\/span>-year-old former Cuban president\u2009\u2014\u2009based on his alleged involvement in the downing of two planes in 1996<\/span>\u2009\u2014\u2009comes in a\u00a0year of intensified anti-Cuban policy that has steadily built since the beginning of President Donald Trump\u2019s first\u00a0term.<\/p>\n

For many on the island, the Obama presidency had felt like a\u00a0real turning point in U.S.-Cuban\u00a0relations.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>The Cuba of 2015<\/span>, 2016<\/span>, was quite different than the Cuba we are living in now,\u201d Liz Oliva Fern\u00e1ndez, a\u00a0Cuban journalist at the U.S.-based news outlet Belly of the Beast<\/em>, tells In These Times <\/em>and Foreign Policy in Focus. \u200b\u201c<\/span>For the first time in my life my friends weren\u2019t thinking of leaving Cuba in order to have a\u00a0better future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Obama administration\u2019s steps toward normalization, underscored by the restoration of diplomatic ties and an easing of the blockade between 2014<\/span> and 2016<\/span>, didn\u2019t last long though. The first Trump administration not only rolled back progress made under Obama, but actually tightened the sanctions regime even\u00a0further.<\/p>\n

Under Trump, Cuba was re-added<\/a> to the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, which imposes penalties on other countries that trade with the island nation. U.S. diplomatic personnel were pulled out of the U.S. embassy in Cuba following baseless<\/a> conspiracies about \u200b\u201c<\/span>Havana Syndrome.\u201d And perhaps most damagingly, Trump lifted the suspension of Title III of the Helms Burton\u00a0Act.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This last move opened the floodgates<\/a> for Americans who had claims to property nationalized after the 1959<\/span> Cuban Revolution to sue companies for doing business on that property, hamstringing the economy even\u00a0further.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>That scared a\u00a0lot of people,\u201d Oliva Fern\u00e1ndez\u00a0says.<\/p>\n

The election of President Joe Biden did not change things, even though he had been a\u00a0central player in the Obama White House. Biden\u2019s feeble effort<\/a> to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism\u2009\u2014\u2009less than a\u00a0week before Trump was re-inaugurated\u2009\u2014\u2009is emblematic of an administration that did too little, too\u00a0late.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Biden didn\u2019t do anything, he didn\u2019t lift a\u00a0finger,\u201d Oliva Fern\u00e1ndez says. \u200b\u201c<\/span>There was no difference between Trump and Biden policy on\u00a0Cuba.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s second term has taken America\u2019s anti-Cuba policies even\u00a0further.<\/p>\n

In January, the administration declared the Cuban government posed an \u200b\u201c<\/span>unusual and extraordinary threat\u201d to the United States. This designation, based on familiar yet baseless accusations<\/a> of collusion with Russia, China, Hamas, and Hezbollah, has been devastating for the island because it created a\u00a0secondary tariff system against any country selling or providing oil to\u00a0Cuba.<\/p>\n

In the six months since that executive order, only one tanker\u2009\u2014\u2009the Russian ship Anatoly Kolodkin\u2009\u2014\u2009has delivered fuel to Cuba. Over that period of time, the people of Cuba have dealt with rolling blackouts and a\u00a0near collapse<\/a> of the nation\u2019s healthcare\u00a0system.<\/p>\n

In May, another executive order by President Trump imposed new sanctions targeting foreign individuals and businesses that engage with Cuba\u00a0economically.<\/p>\n

Then came the indictment against Ra\u00fal Castro, which Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche implied could be enforced by the U.S. military. That threat carries more weight after the illegal U.S. capture of President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro from Venezuela early this year. Maduro was indicted in 2020<\/span><\/a>\u2014the final year of the first Trump administration\u2009\u2014\u2009before the U.S. bombed Venezuela and captured him in 2025<\/span>, the first year of the second Trump\u00a0administration.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>The decision to indict Ra\u00fal Castro is a\u00a0pretext that\u2019s prompting fears of a\u00a0Venezuela-like scenario via leadership decapitation,\u201d Oliva Fern\u00e1ndez\u00a0says.<\/p>\n

On May 20<\/span>, the same day the indictment was filed, the American aircraft carrier USS Nimitz was deployed<\/a> to the Caribbean, increasing the possibility of coming military\u00a0action.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, mainstream U.S. media has been busy setting the stage for a\u00a0potential military move against Cuba. In May, for example, Axios ran a report<\/a> citing \u200b\u201c<\/span>classified intelligence\u201d for a\u00a0claim that the Cuban has been buying drones for a\u00a0potential upcoming attack on America\u2019s military base at Guantanamo Bay. Other recent stories in the Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a> and CBS News<\/em><\/a> also raise the possibility of armed\u00a0conflict.<\/p>\n

The accusation of drone purchases for possible military action follows a\u00a0familiar script of creating a\u00a0pretext for military aggression. \u200b\u201c<\/span>It\u2019s the same recipe they have been feeding the American people from Iraq to Libya to Afghanistan,\u201d Oliva Fern\u00e1ndez\u00a0says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While the Trump administration has accelerated this aggression toward Cuba, U.S. foreign policy has been building toward this posture for decades.<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
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In an interview on Democracy Now! <\/em>last month, Princeton University historian Ada Ferrer said<\/a>, \u200b\u201c<\/span>In terms of invading, Trump has been threatening that since January, since the Maduro operation\u2026I have no doubt Trump would do that if he thought it would\u00a0work.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while the Trump administration has accelerated this aggression toward Cuba, U.S. foreign policy has been building toward this posture for decades. Since the overthrow of the U.S.-allied Batista regime during the Cuban revolution of 1959<\/span>, successive U.S. presidential administrations have relentlessly tried to unseat the communist government. Beyond the economic embargo, the U.S. has been behind multiple coup attempts such as the Bay of Pigs invasion and covertly supported<\/a> government opposition\u00a0figures.<\/p>\n

In the face of the most recent aggression, some Americans\u2014including some Cuban Americans<\/a>\u2014have been organizing to prevent an invasion. In February, for example, hundreds of activists mobilized under the banner of the Nuestra Am\u00e9rica Convoy to break the siege by flying to Cuba to deliver food, medicine, and solar panels to alleviate the effects of the oil\u00a0embargo.<\/p>\n

An invasion of Cuba would be a\u00a0disaster for both the residents of the island and the American public. President Miguel D\u00edaz-Canal has pledged that any incursion would be met with \u200b\u201c<\/span>a\u00a0struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>We will defend ourselves, and if we need to die, we\u2019ll die,\u201d D\u00edaz-Canal told<\/a> NBC News<\/em>. A\u00a0military conflict would only worsen the existing energy and food crises on the island, and likely lead to casualties from the type of bombing campaign the U.S. has recently deployed in Venezuela and\u00a0Iran.<\/p>\n

With working people already wracked by a\u00a0high cost of living, the war in Iran, and a\u00a0Pentagon budget that now tops $1<\/span> trillion, polls show over half of Americans would oppose military action against Cuba<\/a>. The cost of opening yet another front in the U.S.\u2019s imperial wars would be borne by the\u00a0public.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Americans need to be vigilant. The pretext for an invasion is being written in real time. We have the power to push back against these war-mongering narratives, denying public support for an\u00a0invasion.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n

Chris Mills Rodrigo<\/a> is the managing editor of Inequal\u200bi\u200bty\u200b.org at the Institute for Policy\u00a0Studies.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – inthesetimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

14 Jul 2026\u00a0– The indictment of Raul Castro is the latest in a string of escalations aimed at building pretext for a U.S. invasion of the island nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":318649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[2093,530,3281,3223,1126,1050,950,541,2571,4047,249,70],"class_list":["post-318648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","tag-central-america","tag-cuba","tag-evil-empire","tag-fake-justice","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-invasion","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-official-lies-and-narratives","tag-raul-castro","tag-trump","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318650,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318648\/revisions\/318650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}