Why Is Trump Strangling Cuba?
How Miami elites may be behind the current blockade causing a humanitarian crisis in Cuba.
Amid a US-imposed oil blockade, Cuba is facing a worsening humanitarian catastrophe, including daily electricity blackouts and shortages of food, medicine, and other basic goods. The lack of fuel has put pressure on the country’s water systems and forced commercial airlines to cancel flights. The oil blockade comes after more than 60 years of sanctions, including an embargo on trade between the US and the island nation, as well as secondary sanctions on foreign firms that do business with the regime.
In the wake of the Trump administration’s Jan. 3 kidnapping of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, Caracas, under pressure from the US, ceased all oil shipments to Cuba–a vital source of fuel for millions of Cubans. Mexico has likewise ended oil exports to Cuba amid tariff threats from the White House. More often than not, residents of the capital, Havana, lack power amid ongoing rationing of electricity. Food and health shortages are also increasingly acute in the culmination of an unprecedented humanitarian crisis engineered largely by Washington. Sadly, all of this suffering is likely aimed at appeasing neoconservatives in Miami.