We Must Keep Our Eyes On and Our Hands Off Cuba
April 18
Cuba is facing what may be its worst humanitarian crisis in a generation, and the United States government is engineering it deliberately and openly, while most of us remain barely aware it is happening.
After the U.S. intervention in Venezuela removed Nicolás Maduro from power in January, the Trump Administration halted Cuban oil imports from Venezuela.
Cuba’s primary oil supplier since the early 2000s.
The administration then went further. On January 29, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order declaring a “national emergency” with respect to Cuba and establishing a tariff system that punishes any country that directly or indirectly supplies oil to the island.
The emergency, of course, being that Cuba has a government adversarial to U.S. foreign policy interests, or that said government is Marxist-Leninist and we haven’t shaken off that Cold War musk.
Even before the Cold War, the United States has always had its eyes on Cuba. Future Confederate President Jefferson Davis, as a U.S. Senator, advocate for Cuba’s annexation. U.S. interest in Cuba is nothing new.
In the shadow of the overthrows of other adversarial regimes, the positioning towards Cuba proves not only is this country not even trying to hide their imperial ambitions. Instead of trying to rebuild relationships with our neighbors, there continues to be this bastardization of the Monroe Doctrine (dubbed “Donroe”) and further trying to permanently strain our relationship with the rest of the Américan continent.
The results for ordinary Cubans have been swift and brutal. The island has already experienced three nationwide blackouts in March. Cuba’s government was forced to enact emergency measures to address widespread fuel shortages.
In February 2026, Cuba suspended refueling for airliners at its airports, stating it had exhausted the country’s fuel supply due to the U.S. blockade.
Garbage has been piling up in the streets of Havana because collection trucks have run out of fuel.
Cuba’s annual cigar festival, one of the island’s cultural touchstones, was cancelled due to “the complex economic situation.”
You tell me how this collective punishment is helping Cuba.
Our platform is explicit on where we stand: We advocate for ending the Cuban embargo and lifting sanctions, not tightening them into a stranglehold designed to collapse an entire society.
We believe the United States must be a good neighbor, and that the shift in the New World must be away from U.S. dominance and toward genuine collaboration.
What is happening to Cuba right now is the opposite of everything we stand for.
You can disagree with the government of Cuba, much like you may have in Venezuela, and still acknowledge what the United States is doing is generationally damaging.
This administration’s goal is regime change by the end of the year. They have said so openly, and they intend to get there by making life unbearable for eleven million people who had no say in their government’s policies.
Punishment because the United States wants a say in their government’s policies.
Empires forget. The people they squeeze do not.
The United States Pirate Party condemns the blockade of Cuba and calls for the immediate lifting of sanctions and the end of this manufactured humanitarian crisis.
Cuba’s people deserve food, medicine, electricity, and the right to self-determination, not to be starved into regime change on Washington’s schedule.
We must keep our eyes on, and our hands off, Cuba.
Al reshared this.