The United States’ illegal blockade of Cuba has long been used as a tool in the power struggle between the two dominant US political parties, the Democrats and Republicans. Florida, with its significant counterrevolutionary Cuban American population, plays a pivotal role in US elections, making the state a battleground where policies toward Cuba are often tailored to secure votes. Having promised in his 2020 election campaign to ‘promptly reverse the failed Trump policies that have inflicted harm on the Cuban people and done nothing to advance democracy and human rights’ (Americas Quarterly, 4 March 2020), throughout his presidency Joe Biden allowed the Cuban people to continue to suffer under those policies until four days before leaving office, before rushing through a series of last-minute executive orders which did little more than inconvenience the incoming second Trump administration.
On 14 January 2025 Biden announced he was removing Cuba from the US State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) list, acknowledging that ‘the Government of Cuba has not provided any support for international terrorism during the preceding six-month period’. He also suspended Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, which allows US companies to sue foreign entities trading with nationalised Cuban properties and lifted the list of ‘restricted entities’, which prohibited financial transactions with Cuban companies and individuals. This was a victory for the Cuban people, who have been constantly campaigning to be taken off the SSOT list, igniting hope for some relief from the intensified hostilities imposed during Donald Trump’s 2016–2020 administration. However, that hope was short-lived; on his first day in office, President Trump rescinded all of Biden’s executive actions relating to Cuba.
State Sponsors of Terrorism List
Cuba was first added to the US’s nefarious SSOT list in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan; it was removed in 2015 as part of the Obama administration’s rapprochement with Cuba. At the end of Trump’s 2016-2020 presidency, he reinstated Cuba on the SSOT list alongside Iran, North Korea and Syria. This baseless designation served as yet another tool to strangle the Cuban economy. The measure immediately made Cuba a ‘high risk’ for international banks and investors, which meant they stopped carrying out financial transactions with Cuban institutions or individuals for fear of US penalties. Without being able to use international financial systems everything from humanitarian donations to normal transactions are denied to Cuba. Cuba is also not allowed to join international development banks and has no lender of last resort to provide credit during a crisis. Cuba’s designation on the list has also impacted essential imports like medicine and food. The SSOT designation allows the US to wield its influence over global financial systems, effectively strangling Cuba’s access to credit, tourism, and international trade.
The Helms-Burton Act and Title III
The Helms-Burton Act (1996) codified the blockade into US law, restricting any president’s ability to lift it and extending its extraterritorial reach. Title III of this act allows foreign individuals and companies to be sued in US courts if they engage with Cuban properties formerly owned by US companies, which were nationalised after the Cuban revolution of 1959. Trump’s decision to enact Title III in 2019 – after 23 years of suspension – marked a dramatic escalation of the US’s coercive tactics. One significant lawsuit in 2019 involved US nationals suing international cruise companies for using the Havana Docks.
Restricted entities and remittances
Trump’s expansion of the restricted entities list was another blow to Cuba’s economy. This prohibits US individuals and companies from engaging with Cuban businesses. Fincimex, a key intermediary for remittances between Cuban families and their relatives in the US, was added to the list, halting one of Cuba’s largest sources of foreign currency. This led to the closure of over 400 Western Union outlets on the island, severely restricting remittances.
In addition, the tourism industry, reeling from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, faced even more obstacles, as the Trump administration continued to impose bans on US citizens bringing back Cuban cigars and rum, or staying in state-owned hotels.
A tough road ahead
The new Trump administration has solidified its hardline stance. Trump has named Marco Rubio, a second generation Miami-based Cuban, as Secretary of State. Rubio is a staunch anti-communist and has headed the Cuban counterrevolutionary lobby; he prides himself on having designed the ‘maximum pressure’ policy under Trump’s first administration. On 31 January 2025 Rubio declared, ‘The President acted on his first day in office to keep Cuba on the SSOT list, where it belongs…We call for the regime to end its support for terrorism, and to stop providing food, housing, and medical care to foreign murderers, bombmakers, and hijackers, while Cubans go hungry and lack access to basic medicine.’
Rubio, alongside other right-wing, reactionary Cuban exile politicians like Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar, has pushed for further punitive sanction measures on socialist Cuba. On 15 January 2025, Salazar reintroduced to Congress the FORCE (Fighting Oppression until the Reign of Castro Ends) Act which seeks to lock Cuba’s SSOT status in place indefinitely until ‘the President [of the US] makes the determination that a transition government in Cuba is in power’. Nothing short of a transition to capitalism will satisfy Salazar. This bill proposes to strip future presidents of the authority to remove Cuba from the list and ensures that the economic chokehold in Cuba remains in place.
In the face of this attack, the Cuban people continue to defend the revolution. On 20 December, President Miguel Diaz-Canel led tens of thousands of Cubans marching to the US embassy in Havana demanding an end to the blockade. In Diaz-Canel’s words, the protest demonstrated the population is ‘unyielding in its defence of sovereignty and socialism’, showing their resilience and revolutionary conviction. Protesters chanted, ‘down with the blockade’ and ‘we will never surrender’, while waving Cuban flags and holding photos of the revolutionary leadership.
The global call for solidarity has intensified, demanding an end to the blockade and political weaponisation of Cuba by the US’s imperialist parties. Recently, Democrat Senator Ron Wyden introduced a bill to lift the trade embargo, showing some political will to challenge the entrenched US hostility. The road ahead remains difficult, with heightened aggression under the new Trump administration, but Cuba’s revolutionary government continues to protect its people, standing firm against imperialist forces that seek to strip the nation of its sovereignty.
Destinie Sánchez
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! no 304, February/March 2025