Cuba Map – CC BY-SA 3.0
“You strangle us for forty years and then criticize us for the way we breathe.” Cuban leader Fidel Castro was replying to the criticism, now reviving, of Cuba as a failed state. In fact, destructive US policies over six decades have finally led to humanitarian crisis. Suffering and death rates are up despite collective resilience.
Recent comprehensive reports provide information about the origins, substance, methods, objectives, and impact of US measures against Cuba, economic blockade in particular. Two of them appear with support from The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). Cuba’s Foreign Ministry produced two others. The UN’s Human Rights Council on September 8 heard Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan’s report on “Unilateral Coercive Measures.”
Children are dying
Analyst Guillaume Long, interviewed by Prensa Latina on September 15, discussed the US blockade. This senior researcher for CEPR andprofessor of international relations at Sciences Po in Paris stated that, after 2017, Cuba’s infant mortality rate rose 148% as a “direct result of the U.S. blockade.” He had co-authored a recent CEPR study documenting disastrous effects of blockade on infant health in Cuba and on Cuba healthcare itself.
Information in the interview and article apply to the period prior to the US oil blockade and the US regimen of secondary sanctions beginning, respectively, on January 29 and May 1. Infant mortality rates are very likely higher now than as reported by Long. Secondary sanctions are US penalties aimed at third-country companies for dealing with already-sanctioned counterparts.
An epochal CEPR-supported study appeared in mid-2025 in The Lancet Global Health, said to be “the leading journal in global health.” It shows that deaths in economically-sanctioned countries increased in recent years “by approximately 564,000” every year. They attribute the excess deaths to unilateral economic sanctions, imposed mostly by the US government. The point out that, “This is comparable to worldwide annual deaths from armed conflict.” Plus, “children under five years old accounted for 51 percent of the deaths caused by these sanctions.”
So that the world and UN General Assembly know
At a press conference on September 7, Cuban Chancellor Bruno Rodríguez introduced his ministry’s annual report on adverse blockade effects. It appears in advance of the vote to be taken October 28 in the UN General Assembly on a Cuban resolution calling for the blockade to end. For 33 years, delegates informed by these reports have overwhelmingly approved the same resolution.
The report documents US actions and measures taken between March 1, 2025, and February 28, 2026. It may be ─ should be ─ read here: https://cubaminrex.cu/sites/default/files/2026-09/REPORT%202026.pdf
Rodríguez condemned “U.S. policy as an act of collective punishment against the people, with growing repercussions affecting food, electricity, water, health care, education, transportation, and the living conditions of Cuban families.” The Report set the yearlong total of damages at $8,038 billion, a 7% increase over the previous year. It places losses over the decades at $178.7 billion, or $3.897 trillion withinflation.
The report cites the US purpose of “provoking hunger, desperation and overthrow” of Cuba’s government. According to Rodríguez, these are words used by State Department official Lester Mallory in his April 1960 Memo on US strategy for Cuba. The chancellor pointed to “furiously anti-Cuban US officials and congresspersons” with “extremely conservative, neofascist ideology” as propelling the blockade.
Human Rights Council hears Special Rapporteur’s report
The 63rd Regular Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council opened in Geneva on September 9. The US blockade of Cuba was on the agenda for the first time ever. Discussion centered on Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan’s report developed out of her ten-day visit to the island in November 2025. Jaine Zaina Jallad, Douhan’s successor as Special Rapporteur, presented the latter’s report to the Council.
In her report, Alena Douhan explores the historical context of US laws, regulations, executive orders and the economic impact of “unilateral coercive measures.” The report covers the blockade’s impact on human rights to food, healthcare, and education. It notes Cuba’s response; aspects of international law; international cooperation and humanitarian assistance; and reduced availability of public services like water and electricity.
Douhan concludes in part that, “Primary unilateral sanctions … have been substantially exacerbating the humanitarian situation in Cuba.” She adds that, “The measures in force … prevent, impede, delay or make more costly the delivery of the equipment, spare parts and consumables, food, medicine, shelter and clothes necessary to ensure humanitarian relief and the recovery and sustainable development of Cubans in need.”
She explains that, “Restrictions on transactions carried out with Cuba… are all aimed at cutting Cuba off from sources of income. They have resulted in a critical decline in state revenue, hyperinflation, growing poverty and insufficient resources to guarantee the population’s basic needs.”
Included among Douhan’s 15 recommendations is her demand that the US “lift or suspend all unilateral coercive measures applied to Cuba.” She calls for repeal of penalties in place for companies that export goods to Cuba containing more than 10% US components, for ships entering US ports within 180 days of having docked in Cuba, and for the use of US dollars in Cuba’s foreign trade. She demands that the US no longer penalize officials in other countries who arrange for Cuban medical assistance.
To read the report, go to https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/63/29/Add.1
Cuba’s report to the Council
Cuba’s government submitted its own 16-page report to the Human Rights Council. This report opens with President Donald Trump’s remark on January 8, 2026 that, “I don’t think much more pressure can be exerted, except to go in and smash the place.” It catalogues assaults inflicted under old and new blockade regulations and repeats information provided by Cuba’s recent Report to General Assembly. It does cover effects of the oil blockade and secondary sanctions put in place after that Report.
The May 1 executive order unleashed a “sweeping system of secondary sanctions. These apply to companies, banks, and individuals dealing with already sanctioned entities. “They lead to assets being frozen and restriction of operations of any foreign person or entity in strategic sectors … [such as] like “energy, mining, finance, security, and defense.” Targeting foreign companies, they firm up “the extraterritorial nature of the blockade.” Adverse effects are additive to those resulting from Cuba’s “inclusion on the … [US] list of countries allegedly sponsoring terrorism.”
According to this Cuban Report, the US oil blockade represents “an act of genocide, a form of collective punishment against the Cuban people, and a grave violation of International Law, International Human Rights Law, and even International Humanitarian Law.” It states that oil is “essential for the national power grid, drinking water supply, healthcare services, public transport, communications, educational institutions, community services, and every sphere of social life.”
The oil blockade is shattering Cuba’s once exemplary healthcare system. The Report cites a World Health Organization declaration saying that that “health must be protected at all costs,” also that the collective punishment now in play violates “Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.”
The Report offers specifics. Ventilators In newborn intensive care units lack “working batteries.” When there is no power, “ventilation must be done manually with uncertain outcomes.” With no electricity, operations continue “under the glow of cell phone flashlights.” A surgery waiting list exceeds100,000 individuals. Some 32,000 pregnant women are “at risk.”
Because of raw-material shortages, 300 of the 395 drugs produced by Cuba are unavailable. Without fuel, crop irrigation is nearly impossible and food supplies and donated aid material remain in warehouses. With fuel in short supply, foreign air traffic is down and so too Cuba’s remunerative tourist industry.
To read Cuba’s Report, go to A/HRC/62/29/Add.2 or to https://www.ohchr.org/
Truth be told
US disruptions of multiple sectors of Cuban society have over many years weakened provisions for protecting and preserving lives. Cubans are scrambling to survive. Unprecedented numbers of impaired and vulnerable Cubans are dying. Washington powerbrokers seem to regard Cubans as disposable.
Two avenues for the early rescue that is necessary are blocked. The veto system prevailing in the UN Security Council prevents implementation of resolutions approved in the General Assembly. And progressives likely to end US assaults will not soon be holding power in Washington.
What remains is international working-class solidarity. Indeed, material aid from all points has arrived in Cuba, items like solar energy materials from China, food aid from Mexico, Japan, and Vietnam, medical equipment from Europe and US donors, and one oil tanker arriving from Russia. But the great need is for oil.
Two factors allow for the currently total oil blockade to continue. The US Navy polices Caribbean waters surrounding Cuba. And nations of the world depend on undisturbed flows of fuel and energy for nourishing domestic production and maintaining economic balance. Mexico’s experience illustrates overall reluctance to disturb fuel-distribution systems by transferring oil to Cuba.
International solidarity with Cuba has weakened. Rightwing governments newly in power in Latin America and the Caribbean obey US dictates. Aspirations for continent-wide solidarity, as per Simón Bolívar, Cuba’s José Martí, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez more recently, are no more. In accordance with its interventionist 2025 National Security Strategy, the US government holds sway in the region, and Cuba is isolated.
In a recent article, Spanish socialist Leire Pajín, member of the European Parliament, condemns US violations of the UN Charter but emphasizes Cuba’s “[v]iolations of civil and political rights.” She calls for “genuine dialogue among the Cuban government, the political opposition and independent civil society … [and] improved governance.” She claims, “This is what the Cuban people claim and deserve … [and] what the Social Democrats in the EU actively support.”
What remains by way of international solidarity is working-class resistance to capitalist take-down of Cuba. US labor would be following the lead of organized dock workers worldwide. Off and on for decades, they’ve denied shipments of warmaking materials to zones of conflict.
The National Nurses United union on June 30 demanded “an end to the Trump administration’s blockade of oil supplies entering Cuba.” As of 2024, 43 unions and labor councils had already approved resolutions against the US blockade of Cuba. Resolutions are fine, but the need now is for labor action and agitation.
