The Cuban Revolution holds out against US imperialism

 By Vijay Prashad 

Indian scholar Vijay Prashad argues that the Cuban Revolution is now the frontline in the fight against US imperialism.

In January 2026, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US security, a designation that allows the United States government to use sweeping economic restrictions traditionally reserved for national security adversaries. The US blockade against Cuba began in the 1960s, right after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, but has tightened over the years. Without any mandate from the United Nations Security Council (which permits sanctions under strict conditions) the United States has operated an illegal, unilateral blockade that tries to force countries from around the world to stop doing basic commerce with Cuba. The new restrictions focus on oil. The United States government has threatened tariffs and sanctions on any country that sells or transports oil to Cuba.

Trump’s ultimatum to Cuba: fuel or surrender!

Trump’s latest executive order is an intensification of the six-decade US policy which seeks to suffocate and strangle Cuba’s economy to force regime change

February 02, 2026, by Manolo De Los Santos

Cuba stands on the precipice of a severe fuel shortage, a crisis with the potential to paralyze its economy and inflict greater and more profound suffering on its 11 million people. This is not an accident of geography or a failure of planning. It is a direct, calculated result of the United States government’s actions, most recently the fuel blockade announced by the Trump administration’s executive order that places tariffs on any country selling oil to Cuba. This follows another executive order by Trump in April 2019 that activated Title III of the Helms-Burton Act which began a policy of threatening third-country shippers and insurers with devastating secondary sanctions if they delivered any oil to Cuban ports.

Hundreds of Legal Experts Push Biden to Drop 'Punitive and Deadly' Sanctions

 By Brett Wilkins

"Hundreds of millions of civilians around the world suffer—and hundreds of thousands have died—even in times of ostensible peace under the broad economic sanctions imposed unilaterally and illegally by the United States."

As human rights defenders marked the 75th anniversary of the Fourth Geneva Convention and its prohibition on collective punishment, hundreds of legal experts and groups on Monday urged the global community—and the United States government in particular—"to comply with international law by ending the use of broad, unilateral coercive measures that extensively harm civilian populations."