[News] Unbreakable Cuba: Why Washington still fears a defiant island

[Anti-Imperialist News]

english.almayadeen.net
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/unbreakable-cuba--why-washington-still-fears-a-defiant-islan>
Unbreakable Cuba: Why Washington still fears a defiant island
Janna Kadri
August 5, 2026
------------------------------

For over six decades, Cuba has been cast as a strategic threat not because
of its military power, but because its enduring sovereignty and resistance
to US dominance challenge Washington's control over the hemisphere.

   - [image: Unbreakable Cuba: Why Washington still fears a defiant island]
   <https://alpha-en-media.almayadeen.net/media/image/2026/2/25/7fb25edb-b04b-43d2-8fa1-9975032901d7.jpg?width=1000>
   Illustrated by Zeinab al-Hajj for Al Mayadeen English

In Washington policy circles, Cuba is framed as a destabilizing actor.
Official language speaks of malign influence, hostile alignment, and
strategic risk. But beyond executive orders and national security memoranda
lies another reality: families preserving what little food they have
through prolonged power cuts, elderly residents enduring suffocating nights
without fans, and young professionals struggling to imagine a future under
relentless economic pressure.

That reality became impossible to ignore again this week. Cuba’s national
electrical grid collapsed late on August 2
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/cuba-suffers-another-nationwide-blackout-after-power-grid-co>,
plunging an island of roughly 10 million people into darkness. The system
failed again the following day while authorities were attempting to restore
it. The August 2 outage was the sixth islandwide blackout since the
beginning of the year, while rolling power cuts in some areas have lasted
more than 20 hours
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/cuba-suffers-new-blackout-as-energy-crisis-deepens-under-us>.
In Havana, residents have resorted to sleeping along the Malecón to escape
the heat inside powerless homes.

Daily life increasingly revolves around the availability of electricity and
fuel. Meals must be prepared before power disappears. Water cannot be
pumped into apartment buildings when electricity is absent. Refrigerators
remain empty because food cannot reliably be preserved. Public
transportation and basic services falter as fuel supplies tighten.

Cuba’s electrical system is unquestionably old, underfunded, and
vulnerable. Internal planning failures and delayed maintenance cannot
simply be dismissed. Yet neither can the external conditions under which
the system operates. Cuba is attempting to maintain an aging,
fuel-dependent grid while facing restrictions on financing, spare parts,
maritime transport and energy imports
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/cuban-fm-blames-us-blockade-for-power-outages--rejects-threa>
.

These scenes are routinely invoked in Washington as evidence of internal
dysfunction or inevitable collapse. Far less acknowledged is that Cuba
functions under one of the most sweeping, punitive and enduring sanctions
regimes
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/cuba-faces-aggression-with-innovation--resistance--diaz-cane>
in
modern history.
The sanctions architecture

For more than six decades, the United States has constructed an extensive
sanctions regime targeting Cuba’s trade, banking, shipping, investment and
fuel supply.

The Helms-Burton Act
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/cuba-faces-aggression-with-innovation--resistance--diaz-cane>
codified the embargo into US law. The Cuba Restricted List limits
transactions involving numerous state-linked entities, while Cuba’s continuing
designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/cuban-fm%3A-us-ignored-un-vote-to-lift-embargo-on-cuba-29-time>
heightens compliance risks for banks, insurers and foreign firms. Title III
of Helms-Burton creates additional deterrence by allowing lawsuits over
property nationalized following the Revolution.

Containment now operates primarily through financial and legal leverage.
Dollar dominance, secondary exposure, banking restrictions and litigation
risks encourage institutions outside the United States to avoid
transactions that may be legally permissible but commercially dangerous.

On June 30, 2025, US President Donald Trump signed National Security
Presidential Memorandum-5, restoring and strengthening the hardline Cuba
policy of his first administration. It instructed US agencies to restrict
transactions involving military-linked Cuban entities, tighten travel
enforcement and oppose measures that could strengthen the Cuban state.
The pressure intensified sharply in 2026.

On January 29, Trump issued Executive Order 14380, declaring Cuba an
“unusual and extraordinary threat”
<https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/trump-s-executive-order-and-the-options-of-cuba>
to
US national security and foreign policy. The order established a mechanism
through which additional tariffs could be imposed on imports from countries
that directly or indirectly supplied oil to Cuba.

The additional tariff actions authorized under that order were terminated
on February 20. The national emergency itself, however, remained in effect,
as did the wider campaign to prevent Cuba from obtaining fuel
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/trump-admin-weighs-oil-blockade-on-cuba-for-regime-change--p>.
Venezuelan shipments had already been cut off following the US operation
that removed President Nicolás Maduro, while Mexico subsequently halted
deliveries amid mounting pressure from Washington.

On May 1, Trump signed Executive Order 14404, substantially broadening
Washington’s sanctions authority
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/cuba-condemns-trump-order-expanding-us-sanctions>.
The order allowed measures against foreign companies and individuals
operating in Cuba’s energy, mining, financial, defense and security
sectors. It also authorized secondary sanctions against foreign financial
institutions facilitating significant transactions involving targeted
entities.

Successive rounds of designations
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-sanctions-amount-to-collective-punishment-on-cubans--cuba>
followed. Cuban officials, state enterprises, fuel distributors, financial
networks, tourism institutions and other entities were targeted throughout
May, June and July. The most recent round, announced on July 23, designated
another nine entities and two individuals.

The humanitarian consequences are no longer merely theoretical. United
Nations experts have described the fuel restrictions as a form of “energy
starvation
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/un-experts-warn-us-fuel-blockade-on-cuba-violates-int-l-law>”,
warning that they have pushed essential services toward the brink and
directly harmed Cubans’ enjoyment of basic rights.

These measures
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-blockade-deepens-cuba-s-energy-crisis--but-island-adapts>
constrain fuel access, interrupt financial flows and increase
transportation and insurance costs. Yet Cuba remains a small Caribbean
nation without anything resembling conventional military parity with the
United States.

Why, then, is it persistently framed as a strategic threat?
Why Cuba has always mattered

Cuba’s strategic significance predates the 1959 Revolution.

Positioned near the maritime crossroads of the Gulf of Mexico, the
Caribbean and major Atlantic shipping lanes, the island has long occupied a
central place in US regional security thinking. Control over, or alignment
with, Havana was historically linked to protecting southern sea routes,
securing Gulf Coast access and dominating the approaches to the US mainland.

By the early 20th century, that strategic interest had translated into
extensive economic penetration. US capital controlled or held major
interests in Cuba’s sugar industry, railroads, utilities, refineries and
banking sector, embedding the island within a US-centered economic order.

Preferential trade arrangements tied Cuban exports overwhelmingly to the US
market, reinforcing dependence on sugar and restricting economic
diversification. Havana displayed modern infrastructure, foreign investment
and a profitable tourism economy, while rural regions endured land
concentration, seasonal unemployment and entrenched poverty.

By the 1950s, Havana’s tourism industry had also become closely associated
with gambling, organized crime and commercialized sex. Economic dynamism
existed, but it was externally anchored and profoundly unequal.

The nationalizations that followed the Revolution therefore disrupted more
than individual foreign corporate holdings. They dismantled an entrenched
structure of ownership and dependency, transferring control over land,
industry and finance while redefining sovereignty in material terms.

Under doctrines such as the Monroe Doctrine
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/donroe-doctrine--trump-s-neocolonial-drive-in-latin-america>,
the Caribbean had long been treated as a sphere of expected US alignment.
The Cuban Revolution overturned that presumption.

Land reform, nationalization and the rejection of US economic dominance
challenged not only particular commercial interests but the broader
political order Washington sought to preserve across the hemisphere. An
example had to be made, and the Cuban people were subjected to an economic
blockade designed to ensure that defiance carried an unbearable price.
The threat of example

Cuba’s “model problem” for Washington was never only what Havana
represented internally, but what it appeared to make possible elsewhere.

During the 1960s, Cuba aligned itself with anti-colonial struggles
<https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/the-united-states--total-war-against-cuba--resistance-and-so>
and
presented this commitment as internationalist solidarity. US policymakers
interpreted the same activity as the export of subversion.

Algeria became an early emblem. Cuba supported the National Liberation
Front during Algeria’s struggle against French colonialism and, after
independence, sent a medical mission to assist a health system depleted by
the departure of French doctors.

The significance was not merely the size of the mission. A recently
liberated, economically pressured Caribbean country was sending medical
workers across the Atlantic to another newly independent state. Cuba was
demonstrating that international influence did not have to take the form of
financial domination, military bases or resource extraction.

Angola further cemented this perception.

In November 1975, as Portuguese colonial rule collapsed and foreign-backed
movements fought for power, Cuba launched Operation Carlota in support of
the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola. Havana portrayed the
intervention as an act of anti-imperialist defense and solidarity with
African liberation.

Cuba’s role cannot be separated from the wider Cold War. But reducing it
entirely to superpower alignment also obscures its independent political
and ideological motivations, including its support for African independence
and opposition to apartheid South Africa.

For Washington, the conclusion was unmistakable: Cuba was capable of
shaping political outcomes beyond its size, particularly in decolonizing
societies where competing models of sovereignty and development remained in
contention.
Axis, allies, solidarity

Cuba’s contemporary relevance to Washington also lies in its relations with
states that resist US regional and international policy, particularly
Venezuela and Iran.

Cuba’s diplomatic relationship with Iran
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/iran--cuba-sign-cooperation-agreements--first-in-22-years>
dates back more than four decades. Formal relations were re-established
following the 1979 Iranian Revolution and developed through political
dialogue
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/irans-raisi-cubas-diaz-canel-sign-multiple-cooperation-agree>,
commercial agreements and mutual opposition to unilateral sanctions
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/iran-stands-in-solidarity-with-cuba-against-us-sanctions>
.

Havana has supported Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear technology
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/cuba-opposes-anti-iran-sanctions-rejects-us-interference%3A-cu>
and repeatedly opposed military threats against the Islamic Republic. Cuba
is not formally part of the Axis of Resistance, but Washington increasingly
interprets its relationship with Tehran through a wider security framework.

Executive Order 14380 invoked Cuba’s relations with Iran and purported ties
to Hamas and Hezbollah to manufacture a national security justification for
escalating pressure on the island. The May sanctions order repeated the
same narrative, portraying Cuba’s solidarity with Iran and the Palestinian
and Lebanese Resistance movements as evidence of hostility rather than
opposition to imperialism, occupation, and unilateral coercion.

Cuba’s relationship with Venezuela was considerably more extensive and
institutionalized.

Under the Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement signed by Fidel Castro and
Hugo Chávez in 2000, Caracas supplied oil to Cuba on preferential terms,
while Havana sent doctors, educators and technical personnel to Venezuela.
The partnership later expanded through the Bolivarian Alliance for the
Peoples of Our America, or ALBA, intertwining the two countries’ social
programs, political projects and energy security.

That relationship entered a radically different phase on January 3, 2026,
when US forces attacked Venezuela and captured Maduro
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/cuba-honors-32-fighters-killed-defending-venezuela-from-us-a>.
Cuba said 32 of its military and intelligence personnel
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-aggression-on-venezuela-killed-47-soldiers--government-co>
were
killed during the operation. Their remains were repatriated to Havana
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/cuba-mourns-32-soldiers-killed-in-us-aggression-on-venezuela>,
where they were honored in a state ceremony. Díaz-Canel condemned the US
action as “state terrorism.”

The attack also severed Cuba from its most important source of subsidized
oil. Washington subsequently warned Havana that Venezuelan fuel and
financial assistance would no longer reach the island.

The consequences are now visible across Cuba’s streets, homes, hospitals
and electrical system. Venezuela was not simply an ideological ally. It was
a central component of Cuba’s energy security, and its forced removal from
that relationship intensified an already severe national crisis.

The cultural power of the revolution

Cuba’s cultural influence presents another challenge to US power because it
operates outside conventional measures of military or economic strength.

In 1961, the newly victorious Revolution launched a nationwide literacy
campaign, mobilizing young volunteers to teach reading and writing across
the island. The campaign dramatically reduced illiteracy within a single
year and became an international reference point for mass education.

Its significance extended far beyond literacy figures. Education was
established as a collective right rather than a privilege, giving rural
workers, women, and historically marginalized communities greater access to
knowledge and a stronger ability to shape their own lives.

Cuba carried this principle beyond its borders through medical
internationalism
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/guatemala-ends-30-year-cuban-medical-program-under-us-pressu>.
Over subsequent decades, Cuban doctors and health workers served in dozens
of countries, frequently reaching communities affected by war, natural
disasters, epidemics, and severe shortages of medical personnel.

These missions embodied the Revolution’s understanding of healthcare as
both a human right and an act of international solidarity. They also
provided Cuba with vital income that helped sustain its public health
system and social programs under the pressure of the US blockade. By
serving populations often neglected by wealthier powers, Cuban medical
workers forged lasting relationships with communities and governments that
decades of sanctions and political hostility could not erase.

The island also emerged as an important cultural center. Casa de las
Américas
<https://espanol.almayadeen.net/noticias/politica/2208457/casa-de-las-americas-cuestiona-cumbre-antiterrorista-de-ee>,
established shortly after the Revolution, provided Latin American and
Caribbean artists and writers with a space to collaborate, confront
dictatorship and explore ideas of liberation and social justice.

Havana’s International Book Fair developed into one of the region’s largest
cultural gatherings, bringing authors, publishers and readers together in
an event centered on public access to literature and political debate.

Revolutionary figures reinforced this international cultural presence.
Fidel Castro became a symbol of endurance through invasion attempts,
assassination plots and decades of economic pressure. Ernesto “Che” Guevara
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/what-would-che-guevara-do>
became a global icon of rebellion, his image detached at times from the
complexities of his life but permanently associated with the possibility of
challenging entrenched power.

This legacy matters because culture can project political possibility where
armies and markets cannot. Cuba showed that a small country could invest
heavily in education, medicine, culture and international solidarity and,
through those priorities, influence movements far beyond its shores.
What is the real threat?

If Cuba has neither the capacity nor the intent to challenge US supremacy,
why is it labeled an “unusual and extraordinary threat” in Washington’s
political imagination?

The answer lies not in Cuba’s military or economic power, but in the
precedent set by its survival.

US policy has long assumed that isolation, sanctions and deprivation would
eventually force political submission. Cuba’s continued resistance
undermines that expectation. More than six decades of blockade, covert
pressure and economic coercion have failed to end the Revolution or force
the surrender of Cuban sovereignty.

The resulting hardship is severe: deteriorating infrastructure, shortages
of food, medicine and fuel, declining purchasing power and outward
migration. But these conditions cannot be understood without recognizing
the US blockade as a central factor.

Cuba is denied normal access to international credit, banking services,
energy supplies, shipping networks and investment, while foreign firms face
penalties and commercial risks for engaging with the island. This system
raises costs, restricts development and deepens scarcity. Washington then
cites the resulting crisis as proof of systemic failure, turning the
effects of coercion into justification for further pressure.

Despite these constraints, Cuba has continued adapting rather than
capitulating
<https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/without-surrender--cuban-sovereign-reforms-as-continuity-of>.
Recent measures have included allowing private firms to import fuel and
medicines, expanding non-state participation in tourism, easing
restrictions on agricultural land use and authorizing foreign-backed fuel
imports. These reforms aim to address urgent shortages while preserving the
Revolution’s central social achievements.

Cuban leaders have emphasized that such changes do not entail the
privatization of healthcare, education or other strategic sectors. The
objective is adjustment under pressure, not the dismantling of the
Revolution’s foundations.

This adaptability challenges the portrayal of Cuba as incapable of change.
Havana is pursuing reform on its own terms rather than accepting externally
imposed models enforced through sanctions and economic coercion.

A genuine strategic threat would imply military expansion, territorial
ambition or an aggressive doctrine directed against another state. Cuba
displays none of these toward the United States. The actual imbalance runs
in the opposite direction.

The security framing of Cuba therefore reveals less about the island’s
capabilities than about Washington’s expectation that geographic proximity
should produce political compliance.
Sovereignty as security

At the center of the conflict lies the question of sovereignty.

Cuba has repeatedly adjusted its economic policies, pursued international
trade and expanded space for private activity without relinquishing its
political independence or the social foundations of the Revolution. It
adapts to changing conditions but refuses to accept Washington’s authority
over its political system
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/cuba-s-president-rejects-trump-threats--vows-to-defend-sover>
or economic direction.

In traditional power politics, small states located near superpowers are
expected to limit their independence and accept alignment as the price of
security and economic survival.

Cuba has defied that expectation for more than six decades.

Washington’s portrayal of Cuba as hostile serves a clear political
function: it justifies sanctions, frames economic coercion as defense and
sustains policy continuity across administrations. It also allows the
consequences of those sanctions to be weaponized—shortages and hardship are
cited as proof that Cuba’s political system has failed and must be replaced.

The coercion thus generates the very conditions used to justify further
coercion.

Stripped of inflated security rhetoric, the imbalance is clear: a global
military and economic superpower has labeled a heavily sanctioned Caribbean
island of approximately 10 million people an “unusual and extraordinary”
threat.

Cuba does not encircle the United States with military bases, restrict its
access to international trade or seek to dictate its political system. It
is Washington that has long sought to isolate Cuba, weaken its economy and
define the limits of its sovereignty.

The conflict is therefore not fundamentally about a military threat or
economic competition. It is about authority: whether the United States is
entitled to determine which political and economic systems are acceptable
within the Western Hemisphere.

Cuba’s answer has remained consistent. Its sovereignty is not conditional
on Washington’s approval, and its political independence is not negotiable
under pressure.

In that refusal to submit—not in any capacity or intention to threaten the
United States—lies the core of the dispute.

What Washington calls a threat is, in reality, the endurance of a small
nation insisting on choosing its own path.

*Read more: Rubio's oil squeeze on Cuba risks backfiring, analysis warns
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/rubio-s-oil-squeeze-on-cuba-risks-backfiring--analysis-warns>*
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