Was wir in Kuba sahen, schockierte uns
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/opinion/cuba-us-blockade.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hlA.6Txf.yDRDiiakAiTz&smid=re-nytopinion
Was wir in Kuba sahen, schockierte uns
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/opinion/cuba-us-blockade.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hlA.6Txf.yDRDiiakAiTz&smid=re-nytopinion
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„With the exception of one Russian oil tanker carrying 10 to 14 days’ worth of oil, fuel deliveries to Cuba have been blocked for more than four months, as other countries have feared having their tankers seized in open waters by U.S. military vessels. The resulting daily indignities have rippled across Cuban society,“ write Pramila Jayapal and Jonathan L. Jackson.
They add:
>The U.S. blockade of fuel to Cuba, on top of the longest embargo in modern U.S. history, defies the norms of international law that provide for state sovereignty, nonintervention in domestic affairs and the right of nations to trade freely. It amounts to an economic assault on the basic infrastructure of Cuba, designed to inflict collective punishment on the civilian population by manufacturing a humanitarian crisis in which health care, running water, agriculture and transportation are no longer available.
Read the full [piece, for free, ](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/opinion/cuba-us-blockade.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hlA.6Txf.yDRDiiakAiTz&smid=re-nytopinion)even without a Times subscription.
The American crime of the longest standing, and the model for what they did in Iraq. Albright’s infamous „worth it“ was echoed recently by Trump. All ends of the US political spectrum have long agreed that destroying lives outside US borders for fun and profit is a game that never costs anything, because those people don’t vote and can’t kill the people who do.
I don’t know who this article is for. other than the authors themselves.
Jayapal and Jackson do the standard thing where they extoll the virtues of working collaboratively with Cuba while simultaneously finger-wagging the President on esoteric human rights issues. There’s no real strong call-to-action or position they take, other than „we should follow international law and not starve Cuban society into dust.“ It feels like a strongly-worded letter and nothing more.
The reality is, no matter what the Cuban government does for token liberalization or how the Democrats want to talk about Cuba, the Trump admin has already decided what’s going to happen. The Administration is going to starve the island into submission to show the world that Communism doesn’t work. Whether this is primarily Rubio’s personal project, the President wanting to do in Cuba what he failed to do in Iran, or both, is somewhat irrelevant. No amount of protestation is going to change the fact that the suffering is the goal.
Lamenting how naughty we are for doing bad things feels less like persuading the population to change their opinion and more of a CYA for future talking points.
Absolutely shameful how we have treated Cuba for decades. And for literally nothing except spite.
The dictatorship will end soon. A great source of evil will be removed from this wretched continent finally.
Oh no, won’t somebody please think of the poor totalitarian 70-year regime that has torpedoed the country’s economy to the ground!
The only area where I disagree with Trump here is we should be bringing the hard-working Cuban people to the US and let the Communist Party see the collapse of their mismanaged empire of dirt.
I can’t stand Jayapal. I wish we had some sort of sane democrat representative here in Washington. Cuba is a failed state that has exported political violence and suffering for decades. Our elected representatives somehow have a hard-on for them.
Using the propagandistic framing of „blockade“ when the U.S. sanctions regime is most certainly not that immediately disqualifies these authors from any serious consideration. Do not join Trump and countless other authoritarians in trying to change the meaning of words when they don’t suit your narrative. Your standards should be higher than that.
Seems some people think the US has an obligation to let hostile authoritarian regimes latch onto it and get propped up. Had it given the Cuba treatment to the other hostile authoritarian regimes from the get go instead of letting itself get latched on with the naive hope that they would drop their hostile ambitions, it would probably be in a better position than it is.