Picking on a tiny country like Cuba serves no purpose. The elites in Cuba are not going to suffer; the normal people will.
Instead of acting like a bully, I wish our government would be more magnanimous and just drop the embargo.
They care a lot about Cuba being "open door communist bros" with the USSR, and now with China.
If China moves on Taiwan, and the US moves to defend, and then a bunch of Chinese missiles hit the East Coast, people will wonder what the government was doing letting China set up camp right on our door step.
Making sure Florida's Cuban-American community keeps voting Republican.
The end result is going to be them being another China-dependent colony. https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/as-the-us-starves-it-of...
A human would call it generational depravity of the powerful.
Deciding the Cold War is over, other countries get to decide their own political affairs, and normalizing trade with Cuba would benefit Americans.
That's also a minor gripe I have with the leftists who call this imperialism. Let's say it is. And it's benefiting me how? I thought imperialism was supposed to benefit the empire doing the imperialism-ing. (At least in theory.) This is costing us tons of money and international prestige.
(Not saying I support that kind of imperialism either, just making the point that this is lose-lose.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
Also, we're still pissed off at Iran for deposing (in 1979) the dictator that we installed in 1953.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
Whenever America acts "funny" (or irrationally, if you prefer) and does something politically/militarily that makes no sense to the average person, the answer is almost always "white supremacy". In the past, that could be waved away by mumbling "we're fighting communism", but after the collapse of the Soviet Union & Warsaw Pact, we needed a new excuse. Sometimes "fighting terrorism" is used instead, but the T-word never gets applied to white people.
> Therefore, the term banana republic is a pejorative descriptor for a servile oligarchy that abets and supports, for kickbacks, the exploitation of large-scale plantation agriculture, especially banana cultivation.
What? This is currently purely on Cuban-Americans as a voting bloc in Florida...
The recent escalation is due to Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American, being Secretary of State.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/world/americas/venezuela-...
Even with Russia adding Iranian attacks on US bases, the US remains quiet.
It’s a strange world.
You don't like the Cuban government because they're communists, OK fine. I don't like the American policy of starving people for years on end while making high-minded sermons about the moral imperfections of the Cuban government.
The cuban government via National Office of Statistics and Information admitted it fell by at least 10%, but have not done a census in 15 years. Independent estimates range form 18-24%.
Cuba didn't have the ability to break the back of American labor. China did. That's the difference.
It might be legal but it also seems immoral.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/world/americas/cuba-oil-b...
To name one, if a ship docks into Cuba without filing paperwork requesting to do so from the US, it cannot dock into any of the US ports within 180 days of leaving the Cuban territory.
To name another one, if some product is made somewhere else, but contains >10% of US-made parts or materials somewhere in its supply chain, then as far as the US government is concerned it might as well have been 100% made in the US and therefore cannot be exported to Cuba. Otherwise, the company that sold it to Cuba risks being banned from operating in the US.
So the US is and has been pretty much tilting the scale against any other country in the world trading with Cuba, using its own purchasing power as a bargaining chip.
As for solar panels, they do not solve your inability to move cars around. They do reduce your need for fuel, but when you're 100% out of fuel, no car can move around and no amount of solar panels is ever going to fix that.
Also, the issue of the PetroDollar complicates things internationally as well. US throws a tantrum when small countries (or countries it can bully) trade Oil in other currencies. That is very important to keep themselves relevant and with some control over international trades.
Yet another aspect is that if any goods, regardless of who is selling it, contains more than 10% of components, technology, produced by a US company, such seller requires an US Export license to trade such goods with Cuba.
So it's not as simple as that.
https://shippingsolutionssoftware.com/blog/products-subject-...
A blockade is when a country stops traffic, from entering a country's ports. It's an act of war, and a totally different thing from an embargo.
> The oil tanker seized by the United States off the coast of Venezuela this week was part of the Venezuelan government’s effort to support Cuba, according to documents and people inside the Venezuelan oil industry.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/world/americas/cuba-oil-b...
> Three days later, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a tanker full of Colombian fuel oil en route to Cuba that had gotten within 70 miles of the island, the data showed.
> The U.S. government called its 1962 policy a “quarantine” to avoid using the word “blockade,” which legally could be interpreted as an act of war. The Trump administration has also avoided using the word “blockade.”
The distinction seems to be mostly word games at this point.
1. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-we-know-oil-tanker-the-ski...
Whatever rationalization y'all wanna tell yourself to sleep at night...
I'm seriously baffled at your attempt to equate boarding ships that are breaking maritime law with saying women invite rape by the way they dress.
It’s also in fact preventing ships carrying oil to reach the island, using their military, I wonder if there is a term for that.
What would your reaction be if China imposed tariffs on US-Canadian border crossings and seized American ships over it?
> What would your reaction be if China imposed tariffs on US-Canadian border crossings and seized American ships over it?
Again, the ships in being sized were flying false flags, which is illegal. If American ships decided to take this criminal act, then China is justified in enforcing the law.
The US? Then why does their law apply here?
International law? Like the ICC the US ignores? Or the climate agreements it breaks? Or the Geneva convention it runs afoul of?
Sure is convenient the US decided this one specific bit is to be taken extremely seriously.
Either way, it stinks of imperialism.
It’s a little less two faced now though, as this administration ignores US laws too.
Yes. And that is not what happens here!
None of this oil is entering the US at all!
I'm not sure what in my comment you think contradicts this.
This podcast does a great job on highlighting how the media plays its role in justifying the imperialism too:
https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/shadow-fleets-sanctions-w...
Also, the issue of the PetroDollar complicates things internationally as well. US throws a tantrum when small countries (or countries it can bully) trade Oil in other currencies. That is very important to keep themselves relevant and with some control over international trades.
Yet another aspect is that if any goods, regardless of who is selling it, contains more than 10% of components, technology, produced by a US company, such seller requires an US Export license to trade such goods with Cuba.
So it's not as simple as that.
https://shippingsolutionssoftware.com/blog/products-subject-...
It’s a shakedown, meant to harm Cubans.
Oh, so USA is only forcing their trade partners to embargo Cuba! That makes thing better, right?
> The Trump administration had been enforcing what amounted to an oil blockade around Cuba since January, threatening nations that had been sending fuel to the country and, in one case, escorting a tanker heading toward Cuba away from the island.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Cuban_crisis
> The United States began blocking oil tankers heading to Cuba in February 2026, targeting companies such as the Mexican state-owned Pemex and threatening the responsible countries with tariffs should they resist.
> After the ousting of Maduro, the United States began increasing its pressure on Mexico to reduce its oil sales to Cuba with President Donald Trump threatening tariffs against any country supplying Cuba with oil. Mexico temporarily halted shipments of oil to Cuba by 27 January and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that the decision to halt oil deliveries was "a sovereign decision".
It has taken on distinctly more "blockade-like" attributes.
There are plenty of ships that move good and resources to Cuba that don't get boarded.
Maritime law exists, and enforcing it is not an act of piracy.
By the plain text of international law a state cannot commit piracy since piracy specifically only applies to private actors.
> Piracy consists of any of the following acts: (a) any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft...
https://www.un.org/depts/los/piracy/piracy_legal_framework.h...
UN experts condemn US executive order imposing fuel blockade on Cuba https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/02/un-experts-c...
Again, the ships that actually were boarded were doing illegal things like flying false flags to try and continue to trade with Cuba without triggering retaliatory tariffs.
Contrast that with actual blockades: like the UK blockading Germany in WW1. Even if a ship was legally registered, the Royal Navy would still board and seize it if it tried to dock on Germany.
You're trying to call this a distinction without a difference, when the differences between and embargo and a blockade are stark.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/29/us-russian-o...
Why are there "retaliatory tariffs" in the first place? Why is the US forcefully inserting itself into affairs with which it should have no concern? Or are you saying it's the US's concern because... what? They're the world's watchdog and ultimate authority on right behavior? Other countries trading with the countries they've embargoed should rightly be penalized?
Friendly reminder that the only people that majorly benefit from US foreign policy are the elites, most US citizens are left with a more dangerous world where they suffer against backlash, terrorism, and degrading life services.
...just like the war in Iran isn't a war.
These important reminders brought to you by the Ministry of Truth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Cuban_crisis: “ The United States began blocking oil tankers heading to Cuba in February 2026, targeting companies such as the Mexican state-owned Pemex and threatening the responsible countries with tariffs should they resist. […] On 29 January 2026, Executive Order 14380 was signed and entered into force on 30 January, declaring a national emergency in US and authorizing the imposition of additional tariffs on imports into the United States from countries that directly or indirectly supply oil to Cuba.”
That’s a bit more than an embargo.
An embargo is like boycotting a store. A blockade is like standing around the store with a bunch of batons promising to apprehend anyone who tries to shop at the store.
They are not the same.
Edit: corrected it to blockade
A blockade is carried out through military force. Under a blockade ships are physically prevented from docking with the blockaded country, even if they're legally registered.
If you want to decry what the US is doing to Cuba, go ahead. But it is an embargo not a blockade.
You, and other commenters, seem to be in this alternate reality where Cuba is cut off from all maritime traffic. That is not the case.
It’s interesting to see you argue semantics because it implies you agree that the blockade is wrong.
What is Cuba to do about this non-blockade, embargo?
Granted, little weird Russia kept a seat when the USSR broke up.
Sure, they will work hard to be a real place for mediation between small countries and unimportant parties, but they will veto anything against their interests.
This way they can control everyone.
Is the new Venezuelan leader still trying to send Cuba oil? Or has she stopped that?
> "This dramatic worsening has a single cause: the genocidal energy blockade to which the United States subjects our country, threatening irrational tariffs against any nation that supplies us with fuel," Diaz-Canel wrote.
Once a regime change is accomplished, Cuba will buy US energy and not Iranian or Russian. So go the plans at least.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/as-the-us-starves-it-of...
What a lack of confidence in their own system to not allow fair competition between Cuban socialism and American capitalism.
It feels similar to Putin invading Ukraine because he didn't like the example of an EU-aligned country prospering next door and the populace starting to ask difficult questions.
> It feels similar to Putin invading Ukraine because he didn't like the example of an EU-aligned country prospering next door and the populace starting to ask difficult questions.
This is a misreading of Putin's motivation IMHO. He states clearly over and over again that it's about a historical concept of greater and historic Russia. He has even stated publicly it has nothing to do with NATO. So this is a false equivalence.
I'm wondering if the US is solely to blame for Cuba being completely unable to pay for the oil it needs. Obviously the US embargo on Cuba is devastating for its economy, but other states impacted by US sanctions in a similar manner seem to get by with essential good like food, oil, and medicine. Cuba is in a poor economic spot, but the US does not appear at all to be using its military to prevent them from trade with other nations.
However, under the Trump admin it has turned into a de-facto blockade of all fuel, which really isn't the embargo, it's a new blockade by the US against Cuba. So I don't get why we blame it on the embargo when the current problems are clearly caused by the blockade.
Cuba's previous economic problems are driven by a complete lack of economic reforms, as unnamed Chinese officials said in this FT article two years ago:
https://www.ft.com/content/9ca0a495-d5d9-4cc5-acf5-43f42a912...
"China publicly supports Cuba’s right to choose its own path to economic development “in line with its national conditions”, but privately Chinese officials have long urged the Cuban leadership to shift from its vertically planned economy to something closer to the Chinese model, according to economists and diplomats briefed on the situation.
Chinese officials have been perplexed and frustrated at the Cuban leadership’s unwillingness to decisively implement a market-oriented reform programme despite the glaring dysfunction of the status quo, the people said."
As an aside, I'm surprised that computers wouldn't make centralized economies more doable. It might not be good but at least the people wouldn't be starving and dying because hospitals are out of electricity.
I don't know if there is something I am missing, but to me, the "bad guy" in a situation like this is the one holding onto power at everyone else's (extreme) expense, throwing their own team into the fire to keep their power in place as long as possible.
- The Cold War is over and Cuba poses no security risk - Florida is no longer a swing state and appeasing Cuban Americans is not a worthwhile political move - We are willing to ally with much more oppressive regimes for less geopolitical benefits - Cuba was in the process of liberalizing and developing an independent middle class for the first time in half a century before Trump's last crackdown.
The jury is out on whether the "regime change" (or more like, junior dictator promotion) in Venezuela was worthwhile. It's certainly looking like a quagmire in Iran.
By hardballing GAESA, we're probably shooting ourselves in the foot by making the Cuban population more resentful of the US. "Regime change" is a less likely positive outcome than it was 8 years ago.
But we have plenty of models of military dictatorships slowly opening up to becoming stable economies through trade and access. More or less that's what happened with Vietnam, to name one.
alterom•1h ago
We also have no reason to doubt that Cuba has run out of fuel as a result of an embargo on fuel when the officials say so. It's not a surprise; it was the expected outcome and the entire point of the embargo.
A better title would be: "Cuba jas run out of fuel due to the US embargo".
reactordev•1h ago
davydm•1h ago
jmclnx•58m ago
The US started the Oil Embargo and AFAIK it is still on-goimg. Cuba is running out of fuel. To me 2+2=4, so I say blame can be placed on the US :)
dgacmu•54m ago
beepbooptheory•52m ago
> Home burns down, residents blame a fire