Image via DW
South Paris, Maine
Streets and hospital corridors at night in Cuba are dark. Cars and buses don’t more. Cubans walk or ride bicycles. Trucks don’t arrive to remove trash, and so it burns. Offices, production units, and hospital operating rooms are closed down. Older people and babies die when that should not be.
Oil tankers have not arrived for over three months. The U.S. ban on oil imports, enforced by tariffs imposed on January 29, is the culminating blow of a cruel and illegal economic blockade, in place for 65 years. U.S. political leaders want Cuba’s government to disappear. They can do without a people and government saying “No” to oppression and exploitation.
Visiting in Cuba, the writer Vijay Prashad heard Dr. Orestes López Piloto, director of Havana’s Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery, recall that, “My family are workers and farmers, Black people who worked the soil. I am a doctor and a surgeon because of the revolution … There are people who are against the revolution. But there are many more of us who are for it. And we are not afraid.”
Cuban President Miguel Diez-Canel recently assured visiting solidarity activists that Cuba “would not abandon its socialist principles of sovereignty and dignity.” The president told interviewer Pablo Iglesias on March 27 that, “I share with my family that we would give our lives for the revolution. Because there is a history of more than 150 years of struggle … [W]e as revolutionaries always prepare for the worst-case scenario.”
Cuba has friends
Organizations and individuals throughout the word are responding. The UK’s Cuba Vive Medical Aid Appeal recently raised £250,000 for Cuba. Solidarity activists in Italy and Spain are sending aid. Those in the United States are campaigning for donations to allow Global Health Partners and Global Links to send medical supplies. The Hatuey Project and the Los Angeles Hands off Cuba group have sent supplies.
The international Nuestra América (Our America) Convoy arrived in Havana in the days prior to March 21. The Progressive International had conceived of and organized this gathering of hundreds of solidarity activists from more than 40 countries. They brought tons of humanitarian materials.
Speaking at a welcoming event for participants, Gerardo Pisarello, Spanish parliamentarian for the Sumar Party, stated that, “We are here today to give back to millions of Cubans what they taught us as they sent out doctors, teachers, and vaccines out to the most remote corners of the world.”
The Mexican tuna boat “Maguro,” renamed “Granma 2.0,” departed from Progreso, Yucatán and arrived late because of bad weather. Abroad were 25 solidarity activists, 30 tons of food, medicines, healthcare materials, and 73 solar panels. A Mexican Navy vessel and two smaller boats had accompanied the vessel.
Solidarity from other countries
Nations of the world are weighing in, although none are sending oil. Spain’s government plans to deliver food and medical supplies to Cuba via the United Nations system. Canada is donating $8 million (Canadian), also through UN agencies. South Korea’s agricultural ministry gave 24,000 tons of rice to Cuba in December, 2025. The Red Cross in Vietnam transferred $ 15.1 million to Cuban officials in August 2025 and $23.3 million more in October.
The Vietnamese private company Agri VMA, a rice grower in Cuba’s Pinar del Rio since 2023, delivered 250 tons of rice to Cuba’s Ministry of Agriculture on February 17. Brazilian social movements and oil workers mounted an “Oil for Cuba” campaign aimed at pressuring Brazil’s government and its Petrobas oil company to send oil to the island.
Mexico and China are doing the most. Mexico’s government concentrates on food. Two Mexican Navy ships with food aboard plus other supplies arrived in Cuba on February 12, February 28, March 13, and March 27; in all they have brought 3125 tons of aid material.
Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum, speaking to reporters on March 24, insisted that, “No one determines the fate of another nation except its own people … The self-determination of peoples is enshrined in our Constitution and is our firm conviction. “
Former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) on March 14 urged Mexicans to deposit funds for aid to Cuba in a bank accountbelonging to the civil association “Humanity with Latin America” (Humanidad con América Latina). AMLO was endorsing the plea for funds published earlier by La Jornada news service and signed by over 200 activists, mostly journalists and academicians.
China lends a hand
China is Cuba’s other major supplier of essential goods. Cuba needs energy independence, specifically freedom from fossil fuels. The crude oil Cuba itself produces is insufficient, heavy, and difficult to use. Cuba’s oil-fueled generating plants are antiquated and break down frequently.
Cuba’s solar power capacity, amounting to only 5.8% of the island’s total energy need in early 2025, now exceeds 20% of Cuba’s total requirement. That’s enough to supply almost 40% of the of Cuba’s electricity needs during daylight hours. China has supplied the credit, the photo-voltaic units, the associated equipment, and the technical assistance to make this happen.
As of last year, 49 new solar parks are producing for the grid and by 2028 there will be 92 of them. The new installations account for 1000 megawatts of additional daily capacity. Officials are counting on 1000 megawatts more next year. According to energy analyst Jonas Muthoni. “Each megawatt of solar capacity installed represents approximately 18,000 tons of imported fuel no longer needed. If Cuba reaches its 2,000-megawatt target by 2028, oil blockades could become economically irrelevant.” For that objective to be met, Cuba must add “500-600 megawatts of battery storage.”
China’s government has provided individual solar systems for local use. Presently 5,000 solar systems, are being installed throughout the island in 280 hospitals, 430 polyclinics, maternal homes, water pumping stations and telecommunications units. These are “2-kilowatt kits [with] solar panels, inverters, and storage batteries.” The aim is to install 10,000 of these individualized photovoltaic systems.
China has provided Cuba with wind turbines. New wind farms will add to the island’s electricity-generating capacities. Cuba over recent years has obtained electric buses, replacement parts and miscellaneous equipment from Chinese companies. Many Cubans now rely on Chinese electric scooters, and tricycles. A few electricity- powered automobiles have appeared.
A Chinese shipment of 15,600 tons of donated rice arrived in Havana on March 25. An earlier shipment of 15,000 tons had arrived in January. China is providing technical help for augmenting Cuba’s rice production.
Mexico’s dilemma
Cuba may not recover unless oil imports resume. China has no oil to provide. The U.S. oil blockade primarily targets Mexico. In 2025, Mexico accounted for 44% of Cuba’s imported oil. The rest came from Venezuela, with a tiny bit from Russia. Although President Claudia Scheinbaum fondly recalled that Mexico provided Cuba with oil in the past, she recently determined that sending oil to Cuba is inconsistent with contractual agreements of the state-owned Pemex oil company.
Mexico’s government is prioritizing U.S.-Mexican trade and commercial relationships, and understandably so. Mexico is now the largest U.S. export market for the United States, and 80% of Mexico’s exports go to the United States.
Mutual dependency on energy matters is part of the mix. Analyst Mateo Crossa claims that, “Mexico has become structurally integrated into the U.S. fossil energy regime, serving both as a major importer of U.S. natural gas and as a strategic conduit for U.S. energy exports, particularly to Asian markets via its Pacific coast.” He describes “Mexico’s energy sector …[as] fully aligned … with U.S. strategic interests.”
Additionally, Mexico’s government is negotiating possible alterations of the United States Mexico Canada Agreement on trade, which dates from 2020. To preserve a favorable investment climate and prosperous trade relationships, Mexico’s government would naturally want to avoid aggravating its U.S. negotiating partner.
For Mexico to send oil to Cuba would be provocative. Controversy exists already regarding U.S. migration policies, U.S. threats of military action against drug traffickers in Mexico, and U.S. lust for Mexico’s strategic minerals.
Finally, a Reuters report on March 25 revealed the capitalist underpinnings of this deadly venture of blockading Cuba’s access to energy. Actors inside the United States in February shipped 30,000 barrels of fuel to Cuba’s private sector. The U.S. purpose, explained Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was “to put the private sector and individual private Cubans – not affiliated with the government, not affiliated with the military – in a privileged position.”
National leaders and spokespersons almost everywhere have responded to this U.S. blight descending on Cuba with a silence testifying to their timidity in confronting the dominant U.S. narrative. It signals their immersion in the prevailing capitalist system long since gone global. One can only guess at their heartless and retrograde thought processes.
W.T. Whitney, Jr., is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician and lives in rural Maine.
COMMUNIST PARTY OF MAINE 