Cuba's Blackout: A Feature, Not a Bug, of US Policy
Fox News breathlessly reports on millions losing power across Cuba, framing it as an "ongoing energy crisis" exacerbated by "Trump sanctions." What they conveniently omit, or perhaps just don't understand, is that these aren't just "Trump sanctions." They are a continuation of a six-decade-long illegal economic blockade, codified into law with the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, designed to starve the
Cuban people into submission. The US government’s stated aim since the early 1960s, as articulated by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Lester D. Mallory in 1960, has been to "decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government." This isn't a bug in the system. It's the primary feature. The Biden administration, despite campaign rhetoric, has done
little to roll back the more than 243 new measures imposed by the Trump administration, maintaining the pressure cooker despite overwhelming opposition from the international community who have repeatedly voted against the embargo at the UN General Assembly for 31 consecutive years, with only the US and Israel consistently voting against. This "energy crisis" is a direct consequence of Cuba's
inability to acquire spare parts, fuel, and financing due to the extraterritorial reach of the US blockade, which punishes any entity trading with the island. While US media decries authoritarianism abroad, it actively works to destabilize a sovereign nation, impacting the lives of 11 million Cubans daily, simply because they dared to choose an alternative path to American-style capitalism. The