Foreign Policy: Trump Needs to Be Cautious with Cuba — the U.S. Doesn't Need This Conflict
Cubans are enduring the U.S. blockade. Photo.
Experts of the journal Foreign Policy, Guillaume Lemoine and Alex Main, point out that the sanctions imposed by the United States on Cuba for over 65 years have led to a massive migration wave and pose a risk of humanitarian disaster. The current crisis in Cuba, artificially stirred up by the White House, may disrupt regional security and hit the United States itself.
"We don't get involved in politics," a doctor at the Cuban National Institute of Oncology told us, "we just want to help patients." This was a conversation we had during our visit to Cuba in 2024. After talking to exhausted and overwhelmed doctors, we learned that U.S. sanctions have made their work almost impossible — surgical consumables and parts for radiotherapy equipment, essential for treating large numbers of cancer patients, are banned from import, and resources for treatment are extremely scarce.
In all the hospitals and clinics we visited in Cuba, the doctors mentioned a common issue: during the pandemic, the biggest problem was not vaccines (unlike many countries, Cuba independently developed and produced large quantities of vaccines), but syringes and vital ventilators. A U.S. company acquired two Swiss companies that previously supplied these devices to Cuba and then deliberately terminated the supply. Medical staff complained about shortages of various supplies: from dentures, prosthetics, incubators, to sera, IV bags, and even basic medicines like paracetamol.
This occurred before the current oil embargo. It is well known that on January 30, Donald Trump introduced new restrictions, further worsening the situation. Now, ambulances often cannot respond to emergency calls due to lack of fuel, and endless power cuts have paralyzed hospitals. Cuba is in a desperate situation, which could lead to a full-scale humanitarian disaster — especially if Trump fulfills his promise to increase pressure to change its regime. He recently hinted at possible military intervention in front of Republican voters in Florida, saying Cuba is "in its final hours."
Donald Trump has tied Cuba's fate to the incident in January when U.S. special forces captured Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro. After the attack on Venezuela on January 3, the White House leader immediately said, "Cuba seems to be about to collapse. I don't know how they can survive, even barely." On January 29, he invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and signed an executive order designating Cuba as a country that "poses a special and extreme threat to U.S. national security." This document allows tariffs and other punitive measures against countries daring to supply oil to Cuba. However, the effectiveness of these threats is now in doubt — after all, several of Trump's tariffs have been ruled illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Events over the past few weeks, including the U.S. Coast Guard intercepting oil tankers heading to Cuba, demonstrate unprecedented levels of pressure and isolation. Even the famous "quarantine" ordered by the Kennedy administration during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis (which did not use the word "blockade" to avoid international law issues), did not cut off Cuba's access to necessities and oil, only intercepting military supplies.
The goal of the current administration is obvious. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who comes from a Cuban immigrant family, openly stated that a "regime change" is needed. And Representative Maria Elvira Salazar, known for her hardline stance, even said that the suffering of civilians, though heartbreaking, is a necessary price for political change. These remarks fully reflect what decades of sanction policies have repeatedly proven: harming civilians is not a side effect, but an intentional means of pressure.
At the same time, U.S. authorities' statements are contradictory. They sometimes openly state the real purpose of the sanctions, and sometimes innocently deny any responsibility for Cuba's economic collapse and the daily shortages faced by its people.
The current oil embargo is the latest and most severe round in the decades-long economic embargo aimed at suffocating Cuba. Sanctions — particularly the "maximum pressure" policy implemented during Trump's first term (continued almost entirely by Biden) — have deprived Cuba of access to foreign exchange and credit. The result is long-term shortages, soaring prices, interruptions in water, electricity, and transportation, and a continuing deterioration of what was once one of the most comprehensive healthcare systems in Latin America.
Long-term sanctions are like a slow poison: they accumulate structural distortions, suppress growth, destroy infrastructure, drain social sectors, and force the target country to develop expensive and often semi-legal avoidance schemes, leading to economic disorder.
The scale of the disaster is shocking: recent research shows that U.S. sanctions kill more than 500,000 people worldwide every year — equivalent to the number of deaths caused by all armed conflicts annually.
Another less-discussed consequence is the issue of immigration. In Venezuela, sanctions became the main reason for the exodus of over 6 million people between 2017 and 2023. Ironically, it was the immigration crisis triggered by Trump's hardline policies during his first term that later helped him greatly: demonizing the "dangerous migrant wave" became a campaign tool that helped him return to the White House in 2024.
In Cuba, the rapprochement policy initiated by former President Barack Obama was halted, and the Trump administration returned to a stricter line of sanctions (just as the pandemic broke out), triggering the largest migration wave in Cuban history. The mass exodus of highly educated professionals has caused devastating damage to key areas. A young doctor at a top pediatric cardiology clinic in Cuba told us that almost all his classmates had left the country, and he was the only doctor of his generation remaining in the hospital.
But the key issue is that the sanctions have not worked and have not achieved the political goals they claimed. Cuba is perhaps the clearest example: the embargo never brought the results promised by its proponents. In Venezuela, the sanctions only exacerbated an already highly destructive economic crisis (the worst peacetime economic collapse in modern history), causing tens of thousands of deaths. In both countries, the political regimes remained stable, while the ordinary people paid the price.
Aside from the issue of effectiveness, there is also the issue of legality. U.S. actions violate the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting collective punishment, as well as the clauses of the Organization of American States Charter banning economic coercion — both treaties the U.S. has signed. The UN General Assembly has condemned the U.S. embargo against Cuba with overwhelming majorities for over three decades. There are numerous legal conclusions that clearly state that the U.S. actions against Cuba are illegal, including a recent condemnation by UN experts of Trump's oil embargo executive order.
According to the UN Charter, a naval blockade is only legal in two cases: one, following an armed attack as self-defense, or two, authorized by the Security Council (such as the blockade of Iraq in 1990). Neither of these applies to Cuba.
Naturally, in the era of Donald Trump's strong advocacy of American exceptionalism, these legal arguments may seem naive. But there is no doubt that the international community will increasingly add condemnation of the U.S.'s arbitrary coercion of Cuba to its growing demands. Implementing an illegal bilateral embargo is one thing, but violating extraterritorial laws and punishing third countries that trade with Cuba is another. This practice has already caused strong dissatisfaction among European countries, eventually leading the Clinton administration to freeze the implementation of Section 3 of the Helms-Burton Act (which involves compensation for property seized during the Cuban Revolution).
The extraterritorial application of sanctions continues to cause dissatisfaction among countries. Last year, an attack on officials of countries receiving Cuban international medical missions sparked a huge uproar. Currently, Trump's threats against countries supplying oil to Cuba are still having an effect, but the chorus of condemnation is growing like a snowball. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has called the current situation a "massive humanitarian crisis instigated by the U.S." Other countries are closely watching, wondering whether the defenses of government threats will crack and speculating on the actual impact of the Supreme Court's ruling that overturned Trump's tariffs.
It is difficult to understand what Donald Trump personally gains from destroying Cuba's economy and social structure, aside from Marco Rubio's deep personal interests. Cuba has always been a "safe haven" in the Caribbean region: one of the lowest murder rates, no drug production, not a transit hub for drug trafficking, no deeply rooted gangs, private armies, or armed rebel groups, and strict control of borders and territories by the government.
From a security perspective, the sudden collapse of the Cuban state could trigger internal conflicts, a massive refugee flow, and new smuggling routes through the Florida Strait. This manufactured chaos would not only cost lives but could also bring long-term security problems to the United States itself and the entire region.
Original: toutiao.com/article/7616283446897345030/
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