It's not like one needs to say blames here, as if it's just an accusation and there could be another cause for that.
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".
functionally the same - and more accurate to use the original title, as Cuba is the one doing the blaming. I don't know why you're standing up for this - it's more bad behavior from a country that sells itself as the savior, and it's not new - they've been doing this (whatever they need to, to change regimes) in other countries for decades. It's shameless bullying, and completely contravenes "the rules" about how to interact with other countries.
I believe the person you're replying to is criticizing the choice of title, by noting that the phrase "blames" is suggestive that there might be other causes, when there clearly is not (which they agree with you about).
The US could not care less about Cuba being communist.
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.
It's about as ironic as defending your goal while also trying to get the ball in the opponents goal. I suppose in some way it's ironic, but it's also the only beneficial way to play the game.
"Would you tolerate" is kind of interesting phrasing.
It feels like there's no "one-size-fits-all" ideal level of intervention in a dysfunctional/repressive government. Sometimes if you just leave them alone, they "inevitably" liberalize, reaping the benefits. Sometimes if you just leave them alone they calcify, form coalitions, and actively interfere in Western democracies. Sometimes if you intervene a little, you can help support the people oust their rulers. Sometimes if you intervene a little, you just harm innocent civilians, and entrench the power of the regime. And so on and so forth for every possible level of intervention.
Sure, some of it is going to inherently depend on the actual level of the power disparity, on any counteracting support the regime is getting from your adversaries, on the particular details of your intentions and your intervention, on the timing, etc. But sometimes it really feels like nobody knows what they're doing with foreign policy, and sometimes you get lucky and the country where you literally nuke two major cities just sort of shrugs, shakes your hand, and becomes one of your closest allies with a great deal of goodwill between citizens, and on the other hand sometimes you put boots on the ground an funnel enormous sums of money and (at least hypothetically) try to maintain positive relationships with the locals in a huge nation-building project and after decades you end up with...nothing.
So, to go back to what you said, sometimes it feels like tolerating the fascist country in your backyard might be the best way to turn it into a non-fascist country. And, on the other hand, sometimes it might be the worst way. These things seem difficult.
And, for an encore - stop all the other stupid shit. The rest of the world (and the US) is paying the price for little trump-tantrums, like the one against Iran. He's not a good international leader. He's not even a reasonable at-home president.
They've been China dependent for over a decade now. What's different this time is it's an active fuel blockade. US is intercepting ships and explicitly trying to starve people
There's a sizable Cuban-American community that hates the regimes and wants to use the USA to overthrow it, and they're a swing voting bloc in Florida which has a lot of electoral votes. That's the point.
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.)
They embarrassed us years ago by forcing out US capitalists exploiting them and sided with Russia during the Cold War. We won’t forgive them for 50,000 years now despite we work fine with Japan and Germany
As a nation, we're still pissed off that those uppity dark skinned people (/s) overthrew our businesses and replaced the corrupt politicians installed by our government/businesses. Generally, when other nations do that, we invade them. Repeating that pattern in Central America led to coining the phrase "banana republic" to describe it.
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.
No. The fact that the Cuban authorities s decided that further impoverishing Cuba is worth preserving their single-party communist regime demonstrates that it is indeed a bad government.
A boycott is a crime? The US has decided not the trade with Cuba, that's it. Cuba is still free to trade with any other country that's willing to trade with them.
5 minutes before this post you were saying it's an embargo, not a blockade. Now it's a 'boycott'. I don't trust people whose arguments constantly shift to meet the rhetorical needs of the moment.
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 USA, like all serious countries, seeks to defend and advance its interests. Those interests include the suppression of self-declared enemies like Cuba and Iran, or seeking regime change so they cease being self-declared enemies of the US.
The irony of your claim that the US is starving the Cuban people is that in fact, the US could go that far and it would actually end the enmity from Cuba. But they haven't and they won't. It would harm other interests, possibly engender enmity elsewhere, and outside of total war Americans don't play the game that dirty.
But if people widely believe that's what the US is doing anyway, and they're "doing the time" without having actually having "done the crime", then considering that actually doing it would end the enmity from Cuba, it starts to look awfully attractive to Just Do It. So claiming that they are, when they actually aren't, only makes it more likely that they will.
Anyway, given that both ex-communist states China and Russia have demanded economic reforms from the recalcitrant Cuban regime--which have not been forthcoming--and that food is not embargoed, I think the impoverishment and hunger of the Cuban people can't credibly be blamed on "el bloqueo".
Cuba now imports their sugar--from the US of all places! You really think that it's American policy starving Cubans?
I should have been more explicit that I was using boycott as an analogy to an embargo, in contrast to a blockade which unilaterally prevents countries from trading through military force.
An embargo is analogous to a boycott: you and your friends decide not to shop at a given store. But people who disagree and still want to shop have the ability to do so.
A blockade is like people standing around the store with batons and pepper spray, promising to apprehend anyone who tries to shop at the store.
The latter is obviously a much more forceful move. In fact, it's an act of war.
But the US also limits their patronage of other businesses whose owners shop at the store. And because the US is such a rich and great customer, while Cuba is broke and their shop has empty shelves, other business owners generally avoid going to CubaMart.
It's not a blockade, and everyone involved is simply exercising their sovereign rights. But it is mildly coercive. Which, obviously, is the whole point.
Right, but the point is, it's not a blockade. Loads of people are calling it a blockade, and correcting that piece of misinformation is the root of this whole thread.
If people want to say that the embargo is coercive and bad, that's fine.
i remember during covid china sent its vaccine to cuba and america captured it and siezed it. that's why cuba developed their own vaccines. another point on the "maybe the cuban communist party isn't so bad" tally.
after a failed invasion to overthrow the cuban government, we spent a lifetime doing covert operations and using our economic dominance to try to starve cuba to death, but the problem is that cuba has resisted. i wonder if that'll still be your tune if america finds itself on the receiving end of that kind of treatment.
Cuba let 20% of the population leave in 2020-24 so that they would have fewer dissenters in the country who might overthrow the government. Thats a higher rate of population per year than the peak of the great Irish famine
Where does one go with one of the weakest passports in the world, no assets, no family connections, and probably only sporadically any skills capable of getting a work visa? I need to get on speed dial whatever immigration lawyer those people had.
I can't find the article but I did read a few years ago most had left to either Mexico or the US. The US had a very favorable program for cubans to enter, work and stay in the country under the Biden admin.
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%.
if they don't let people leave to prevent total state collapse then they're starving their own people (by means of the american trade embargo); if they do let people leave, it's to tighten their stranglehold on the country.
> i'd love to see america "manage" the conditions america has imposed on cuba.
The single biggest problem would be rebuilding the US manufacturing base. Once that happens, the US would be fine. America's probably capable of autarky: it's got the natural resources, population size, and technology.
> so we would manage the conditions we've imposed on cuba by just simply not having those conditions.
The US didn't impose the condition of being a resource-poor island on Cuba, nor did it impose the condition of economic mismanagement on it (apparently so bad even the Soviets complained about it). The US imposed the condition of a trade embargo, and that's it.
In a vacuum sure, but the communists replaced Batista, who was arguably as bad or worse at the time of the revolution. In the long run they'd have probably been better under Batista because being America's bitch is better for the health of Caribbean nations than being the bitch of USSR/China and the enemy of America while you haul your goods home in a donkey cart like it's the 19th century. But it wasn't knowable at the time the die was cast.
Important to point out that Batista was installed by the US.
There are only 2 countries in all of South America that DON'T have the experience of having a democratically elected leader ousted in a US-backed coup and replaced by a dictator.
The situation was also something created by the US: After taking power, Castro visited the US to try and set up friendly relations with them. The US president refused to meet him, sending the VP (Nixon, ugh) instead and generally giving them the cold shoulder and squeezing Cuba more and more. Khrushchev saw the opportunity the US had handed him on a silver platter, and the rest is history.
Right because if we trade with the communists near us then people will start to realize that our government is made up of communism for corporations. Which is totally fine because we hide those communist ideas under “capitalism”. Let’s encourage the fed to buy more Intel shares and bailout big business (banks and PPP giveaways) but continue to wag the finger at communism in Cuba because it’s “bad” and the 1950s boomers got red scared!
The US is not enforcing a blockade, it's an embargo. The US and other countries are refusing to trade with Cuba, but plenty of other countries can and do trade with Cuba. Cuba is not entitled to trade with the US.
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.
> 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.
The Ocean Mariner departed Columbia with the stated destination of the Dominican Republic. But it started sailing towards Cuba. When it realized that it was being tracked by the USCG, it changed course towards the Dominican Republic.
We don't know with certainty what it's intent was, but it's likely it was trying to sell oil to Cuba surreptitiously, so as to avoid triggering retaliatory tariffs against Colombia.
The ship was free to dock and offload in Cuba, but that would trigger tarrifs against Colombian exports the US. Which is why it turned around when it realized it was spotted. All the coast guard did was ensure that the ship docked at its stated destination.
It's amazing you're talking about international law, which US never respects anyway.
In fact, they are actively in the middle of an illegal war with Iran, never mind the fact of violating the ceasefire by causing a blocking.. I'm not going to go into details regarding the US record of breaking international law (which I'm sure you're aware of), but I digresses.
Meanwhile, you're lecturing us whilst completely disregarding the main focus of the article, which is the humanitarian crisis United State is causing across the world.
I, for one am proud of my country (Canada) for defying US "embargo". Canada is actively opposing its effects by providing humanitarian aid and maintaining normal trade/diplomatic relations with Cuba.
No - they can just pay the tariff and continue to trade. The ships being seized are doing things like flying false flags, to try and trade with Cuba without paying tariffs.
A tariff is a tax that a country imposes on goods entering its borders. A country can impose a tariff on any country, at any time, for whatever reason (unless they've signed free trade agreements obligating them to refrain from imposing tariffs).
> 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.
Yes, they fly false flags to avoid triggering retaliatory tariffs. If country X sells oil to Cuba than country X's goods being imported to the the US will be subject to additional tariffs.
I can see how this wording makes it sound like the US is charging a tariff on the oil entering Cuba, but that is not the case. The tariff in that quote is referring to the tariffs the US is promising to place on counties that don't participate in the embargo.
It always boils down to the US ignoring international trade and laws in their favor. As you said there is nothing illegal about two countries trading. The idea the US should have a say is deeply undemocratic and frankly anti-human as well, but that's just the US for you.
This podcast does a great job on highlighting how the media plays its role in justifying the imperialism too:
>there is nothing illegal about two countries trading
No, there isn't. There also isn't anything illegal about the USA threatening to tarrif it's own trade with countries that trade with Cuba. If a vessel fakes it's flag to avoid that attribution, it is then stateless, and the USA is allowed to board it.
Good question, and you'd be right that in that situation it wouldn't hold up to scrutiny. That's not what's going on, though. Instead, the tariff applies to trades American trade when it is determined that the other party is also trading with Cuba. The parent is correct; Mexico, or any other country, is free to trade with Cuba, but then it will be subject to American tariffs on American trade. It has to make the choice. There is certainly pressure, but it's on independent states to decide.
Trade in US Dollars with other countries need to go through US banks, which can be subject to prohibitions, which can be done by political motivation.
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.
Paying a tariff to a third-party government doesn’t mean the third-party government is obligated to stop pirating ships under the guise of “flying false flags.”
I think the Iranian school bombing was pretty clearly a mistake, given its proximity to an IRGC base, and (IIRC) the previous usage of that plot of land for military purposes, suggesting an issue of outdated target intelligence. That compounds with the lack of a plausible motive, and numerous demotives for hitting it deliberately. Which is not to present the action as significantly less blameworthy; it's a heinous negligence. Gotta have dirty bits in your cache, so to speak.
By the same logic Iran is not blockading the strait of Hormuz — just send them 25 BTC and your oil tanker too can pass.
By the same logic the mafia aren't disrupting your business when they ask for a protection fee — just pay up and the same mafia won't empty a clip into your store during business hours.
By the same logic street muggers are not actually taking your stuffs by force — just hand them your wallet and you get to keep your jacket and your life.
> 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.
> 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".
Your own link highlights the fact that this is not a blockade. The US threatened Mexico with tariffs if they didn't participate in the embargo against Cuba. Mexico decided that trade with Cuba isn't worth tariffs on Mexican exports to America. While the US is pressuring Mexico with the threat of tariffs it is ultimately Mexico's sovereign decision to stop sending oil to Cuba.
If Mexico decided to keep sending oil to Cuba, and the US started sizing ships carrying Mexican oil bound for Cuba that would be a blockade.
If I stand outside your house and threaten everyone who comes near with economic ruin, right after kidnapping your close friend and next-door neighbor using the world's most powerful military, you're gonna feel a little blockaded.
You seem very focused on some pedantic distinction here that just looks goofy from a practical standpoint. The US is intentionally cutting off oil supplies to Cuba. Call it whatever the fuck you want.
Threatening to tax people who enter your house is still vastly different from physically apprehending anyone who tries to enter your house even if they're willing to pay the tax.
The difference between a blockade and an embargo is not small: the former is an act of war. If you really think this is no meaningful distinction between a blockade and an embargo, then how about you just correctly refer to it as an embargo? If there really is no meaningful distinction then why not just use the right word?
> If you really think this is no meaningful distinction between a blockade and an embargo, then how about you just correctly refer to it as an embargo?
I think you're very focused on finding reasons the blockade isn't one, to the point of some severe contortions. I'm not sure why you think the US is leery of acts of war; we've committed a bunch in the last year, including multiple preemptive decapatation strikes of world leaders.
You think it's an embargo; I (and much of the world) think it's a blockade. Whoever's right, this'd be deeply shitty antisocial behavior if you did it to your neighbor, and likely to lead to blows.
The severe contortions are on the end of people trying to call this a blockade. These terms have long established definitions. A blockade is a unilateral action where a country seizes vessels that try to dock at the blockaded country. It's an act of war.
This is not what's happening in Cuba. Countries are deciding to participate in the embargo because they don't want to have their exports to the US tariffed. Emphasis on decided. These countries have the option to continue trading with Cuba and having their imports tariffed.
A blockade does not afford other countries that option. The Royal Navy seized any and all vessels bound to Germany during WW1. There was no option to simply accept a tariff and continue trading with Germany. Because this was a blockade not an embargo.
> we've committed a bunch in the last year, including multiple preemptive decapatation strikes of world leaders.
Correct, like a blockade, those are indeed acts of war. If the US was bombing Cuba, then the US would indeed be at war with Cuba. But that's not happening in Cuba.
You know this isn’t true, but continue to assert it. I gave you a link to a non-false flag tanker that was forced away by the Coast Guard and escorted out for several days.
As I explained in my reply, that tanker was not forced away. It lied and said it was headed to the Dominican Republic, but tried to sail to Cuba - presumably to surreptitiously sell oil without triggering retaliatory tariffs. When it realized it was being followed by the Coast Guard, it turned around and sailed to its stated destination.
The ship could have made port in Cuba and unloaded it's oil. But then Colombia would be hit with tariffs. The threat of tariffs made the ship turn around on its own volition, not because the coast guard deployed force to stop the ship.
If the vessels were legally flagged, both of these are indeed actions of a blockade!
You're just ignoring the fact that the ships the US seized were flying false flags and are subject to seizure regardless of the embargo.
And in the case of the Ocean Mariner, the ship wasn't forcibly turned away by the coast guard. They changed course to the Dominican Republic (which was its purported destination anyway...) on their own volition when the realized they were being tracked. The could have continued to Cuba if they wanted to, but that would trigger retaliatory tariffs.
> The Cuban Missile Crisis doesn’t even meet your standard.
Yes it was a blockade! The US military deployed its forces with orders to seize Soviet ships bound for Cuba (though they turned away before any ships were actually boarded).
> If the vessels were legally flagged, both of these are indeed actions of a blockade!
Where is “it’s not a blockade if the ships don’t have papers” set out in international law?
> Yes it was a blockade!
Funny. Kennedy tried your exact denialist tactic - they called it a quarantine.
History, of course, isn’t fooled.
> The US military deployed its forces with orders to seize Soviet ships bound for Cuba (though they turned away before any ships were actually boarded).
And you are somehow privy to the Coast Guard’s orders in the Ocean Mariner case? How do you know what would have happened if they made for Cuba?
In your view, what does this mean? The distinction seems important to you, but I am not sure if you have really gotten into the meaningful difference. If it is definitely not a blockade, and that is important to say, why is it important? Does it mean we should view the situation differently? Does it imply more/less culpability to one party or the other? Should we have more hope around the humanitarian crisis? Or less?
Being direct about these kinds of questions would maybe help us understand where you are coming from here.
A blockade is an act of war, carried out by military force. Saying the US is blockading Cuba is saying that the US and Cuba are at war. That alone is a pretty big reason to understand the difference between a blockade and an embargo.
The other important dimension is that countries participating in the embargo are choosing to participate in the embargo. This is distinct from a blockade which is done unilaterally. The Royal Navy didn't let ships into Germany ports during WW1 if they paid a tariff. No, they seized ships bound for Germany, because that was an actual blockade.
An embargo is when countries decline to trade with you on their own accord.
A blockade is when a country uses military force to physically stop other countries from trading with you, even if those other countries want to trade with you.
Is the meaningful thing you are trying to get across here something like: "everyone is saying USA is doing something really bad, but in fact they are not"?
Or maybe more: "ok USA might have it a little out for Cuba, but remember, everyone else hates them too, otherwise they would be trading with them"?
The meaningful thing is to understand the difference between a blockade and an embargo.
When people say that the US is blockading Cuba I'm not sure if they are genuinely misinformed and think that the US Navy and Coast Guard are physically apprehending any ships trying to dock in Cuba, or if they are just ignorant about the difference between a blockade and an embargo.
The fact that oil imports are being curtailed by an embargo rather than a blockade is not minor semantics. The former is when countries voluntarily cease to trade with someone. The latter is when a country deploys its military to seize vessels trying to reach the blockade target. It's also an act of war.
If people really think it's a minor semantics difference, then they should just be honest and correctly refer to the situation as an embargo, not a blockade.
No what? The US's embargo and threats to tariff countries that don't match this embargo is blocking most but not all oil bound for Cuba. Russia, for example, continues to trade with Cuba because it's willing to tolerate increase in tariffs (not that Russia is trading much with the US anyway).
If this were a blockade then the US would be boarding Russian oil tankers even if they're legally flagged as a Russian vessel.
If you really think the distinction between blockade and embargo is irrelevant then we can just acknowledge that it's an embargo, not a blockade, and move on.
You all are. Why not just concede it's an embargo not a blockade and move on?
> Is the US preventing most oil from reaching Cuba or not?
Sometimes questions like that obscure more than they elucidate. If you're debating if a killing is murder or involuntary manslaughter, it doesn't prove your point to ask if the man is dead.
Ok but if it is a murder/involuntary manslaughter-esque distinction, why not just say that? I feel like I made it really easy to do that and wasn't couching it in an accusation or any kind of hyperbole.
Just, please, tell it to me straight, I'm a little slow. Is that what we are saying? That everyone is claiming murder, but actually it's more involuntary?
Well recently Mexico and Venezuela. The rest are forced through the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, the U.S. can penalize any foreign company that does business in Cuba.
It's not about better or worse. I think it's important to understand the actual situation first so that we may argue the on the issue at hand. Embargo and blockade are at different levels of escalation. Now we can discuss that the embargo and advocate for de-escalation
> U.S. President Donald Trump resumed ramping up a six-decade-old American ecomonic embargo on Cuba in January after cutting off its main supply of oil from Venezuela and threatening sanctions on Mexico, its second largest supply, and any other country that provided oil to the island.
It has taken on distinctly more "blockade-like" attributes.
They have been boarding ships that fly false flags. That is, they claim to be flying under the flag of some country. But when the US contacts that country to confirm that the ship is really registered there, the government of that country replies that the ship is not, in fact, registered. This is legal to do regardless of the embargo against Cuba.
There are plenty of ships that move good and resources to Cuba that don't get boarded.
Your comment makes it look like is a police action instead of interfering in the business of third countries in international waters, with the express goal of causing economic pain.
The two are not mutually exclusive: The US embargo is done with the goal of economically hampering Cuba. The ships that try to skirt their home countries' participation in the embargo by flying false flags are being subject to police action.
I think this attitude is why EU and other nations have started to realize that doing business with US and relying on them is not a good idea.
United States is still under the impression that it's post WWII era..
The good news is that American's grip is slipping and will no longer be able to exert the same level of power in the next decade or so.
You're right, no one is entitled to trade wit US but the US is not entitled to trade with the rest of the world either, including China, Russia, Europe and Middle East.
I think Americans should realize that the post WII era is well passed and "strong arming" nations isn't going to work.
It's legal because the ships were flying false flags. They claim that they're registered in country X, but when the US calls up country X they are told that the ship is not, in fact, registered there.
Maritime law exists, and enforcing it is not an act of piracy.
Maritime law alone isn't what justifies seizing of ships identified as stateless. Under maritime law ships properly registered to a state are only subject to that states laws when in international waters. But stateless ships can be subject to any states laws, however maritime law itself doesn't grant the right to seize even stateless ships. So the US seizing a stateless ship would have to justified under US law.
Basically stateless ships don't have any international legal protections in international waters (at least according to the US's interpretation of the law).
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...
If you read the link closely, nowhere does it actually say the US is employing military force to stop ships from docking in Cuba - that's what a blockade is. The author of the piece is essentially trying to redefine "blockade" to mean "embargo".
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.
As I said in my other reply to you, if it looks like a duck and act like a duck, it's a duck. Call it a de-facto blockade if you have to. Being this pedantic only serves to protect the image of a heinous crime.
But it doesn't look like a duck? There are ships docking and departing Cuba all the time. Your speaking as though Cuba is cut off from all maritime trade, which is not the case.
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.
it is cut off from oil. it is effectively an oil-blockade, except for the one shipment the US allowed through, as reported by the media. Sorry, I'm done talking with someone who's this pedantic, it's not good for my blood pressure.
But it's cut off from oil because other countries refuse to trade with Cuba. Not because the US Navy is blocking vessels (besides those flying false flags) from docking with Cuba.
If you really believe there's no distinction between an embargo and a blockade then you should have just correctly used the term "embargo". This isn't pedantry, this is the difference between an act of war and an economic move.
I would further note that, if one is looking for something to dislike about the embargoes, being a blockade isn't necessary. In particular, (classical) liberals should be disturbed by countries forcing private shippers to participate in "their" country's embargo. E.g., would the US attempt to stop and American company from trading with Cuba?
Because of US economic pressure, yes. But that's not what a blockade is. A blockade is preventing trade through military force, physically seizing any ships that attempt to dock in the blockaded country.
> If the police prevent all grocery stores from selling you food and you starve, who do you blame: the police or the grocery stores?
Except that's not analogous to Cuba's situation. It's more like if the grocery store sells you food, the the grocery store is hit with a bigger tax bill. So the grocery store chooses not to sell you food.
The police preventing the grocery store from selling you food would be analogous to a blockade.
> It's more like if the grocery store sells you food, the the grocery store is hit with a bigger tax bill
And you also risk pissing off the mafia boss and will suffer the consequences elsewhere. It's not a simple choice to sell or not sell with no strings attached. Its one power drunk bully and everyone else.
> continue to trade with Cuba without triggering retaliatory tariffs
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?
Because the US wants to economically isolate Cuba to prod the single party authoritarian regime into liberalizing. It's fine if you think that's a bad thing. My only point is that it's not a blockade, it's an embargo. Countries have the option to trade with Cuba and live with the additional tariffs on their exports to the US. Under an actual blockade, that option doesn't exist. The Royal Navy didn't let ships into Germany during WW1 and slap their flag countries with tariffs. No, they boarded and seized the vessels because this was an actual blockade.
Well mostly because of the direction actions of imperialism causing the needless deaths of babies but seeing how you seem to be pro-imperialism you probably see this as a good thing for American hegemony. Right up there with bombing school girls in Iran. It's just good diplomacy at that point right?
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.
I'm trying to figure out your reason for saying this. You seem to be an adept mind reader so please forgive my mental torpidity, but are you saying that Cuba does not do bad by it's citizens? Or that they do, but are justified? And where exactly does "imperialism" come into the equation?
FTA: “U.S. President Donald Trump resumed ramping up a six-decade-old American ecomonic embargo on Cuba in January after cutting off its main supply of oil from Venezuela and threatening sanctions on Mexico, its second largest supply, and any other country that provided oil to 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. […] 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.”
No really, it's an embargo and a promise to tariff other countries that don't also embargo Cuba.
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 can beat around the bush to pretend what is effectively a blockade to be anything but a blockade. Call it a de-facto blockade if you have to. You're using technicality as a crutch.
It's not a blockade. Any country around the world is free to sail their cargo ships to Cuba and trade with Cubans. This will in turn, trigger tariffs against them in the US, but if countries really want to trade with Cuba they can.
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.
No, they are not blocking legally registered tankers from other countries. The handful of boarded ships were boarded because they were flying false flags, which is illegal and opens them up to being seized regardless of the embargo.
Yes, a Russian flagged tanker can sail and land in Cuba. The Russian oil tanker Anatolky Kolodkin did, in fact, dock in Cuba and offload oil in March 2026.
The Anatoly Kolodkin did exactly that. Russian oil. Russian ship. Russian flag. Docked in Cuba and unloaded it's oil. It was the first oil Cuba had been delivered in 3 months.
Only because Trump waived sanctions and allowed them to dock.
Responding to reporters' questions on March 29 about whether the ship would be allowed to dock, Trump said, "We don't mind somebody getting a boatload...because they have to survive."
The ship would be allowed to dock regardless of what Trump decided. Just Because Trump gives permission doesn't mean Russia needs permission from the US. If the US boarded the Anatolky Kolodkin, that would be an act of war against Russia. That exactly why the Cuban Missile Crisis was so tense: if the US did stop Soviet ships bound for Cuba then that would be an act of war against the USSR.
It is effectively an oil blockade, and it's illegal under international law. Being this pedantic about how the US justifies its actions shows zero understanding for how these things tend to be done. The purpose of a system is what it does.
No, it's not effectively an oil blockade. Countries have the option to trade with Cuba and risk whatever retaliatory tariffs the US promises to put on countries that ship oil to Cuba. These counties choose to refrain from trade with Cuba because the value they get out of exporting goods to the US exceeds the value of trade with Cuba. But if they decided otherwise, that option is available to them.
A blockade is an act of war where a country physically stops vessels from entering port in the target of the blockade. There is no choice in a blockade, the country enforcing the blockade is acting unilaterally
If you really think this is a distinction without a difference, then you could've just used the word "embargo" and avoided this exchange. But you didn't, you chose to call it a blockade, which is incorrect.
And if pretty much any other country in the world threatened tariffs if they traded, most countries would be "meh". The US is the global superpower and a vast player economically.
Pretending that what the US does here is the same as if any other country did it is disengenuous.
No doubt that America's embargo is more powerful because it's one of the largest import markets in the world. I'm not pretending that an American embargo is no more impactful than a smaller country carrying out an embargo. But it's unambiguously an embargo, not a blockade. These terms have long established definitions. A blockade is an act of war, carried out with military force. An embargo does not become a blockade by virtue of the fact that the country doing the embargo had a big economy.
If you think the embargo is bad, that's fine. What I'm objecting to is people calling it a blockade.
But they're not blocking oil tankers from other countries, at least not ones that are operating legally. The only tankers that have been seized were flying false flags, which makes them legal to seize irrespective of the embargo.
They have been stationing coast guard ships as interceptors to stop other tankers from reaching Cuba. At least one tanker turned away in the face of the threat from the USCG.
The whole “false flags” argument is also a stretch given that these ships are flying false flags to avoid US sanctions. “We’re not embargoing, we’re just sanctioning” is kind of a nonsense statement when we seize sanctioned ships. The warrant to seize “Skipper” was issued because it was carrying sanctioned oil, not because of the flag it was flying.
This is an embargo, enforced with both economic and military strength. Again, the fact that you want to argue pointless semantics indicates you believe the embargo is not defensible.
> At least one tanker turned away in the face of the threat from the USCG.
If you're talking about the Ocean Mariner, it was not threatened by the USCG. The ship was carrying Colombian oil, and if it docked in Cuba that would trigger tariffs on Colombian imports.
So the ship lied and said it was bound for the Dominican Republic and tried to sneak into Cuba. When it realized it was spotted by the coast guard, it turned towards its stated destination because they knew they were being watched and if they docked in Cuba then Colombia would be hit with tariffs.
If the ship continued to sail to Cuba and the coast guard sized the ship that would be a blockade.
> This is an embargo, enforced with both economic and military strength. Again, the fact that you want to argue pointless semantics indicates you believe the embargo is not defensible.
Nowhere did I argue that it isn't an embargo. I've been repeatedly explaining that it is an embargo, rather than a blockade. If you think I'm denying that this is an embargo, you've far off the mark of what I've been saying in this thread
If you genuinely think the two terms are in distinguishable, the why the stubborn insistence on calling it a blockade? Just use the correct term and call it an embargo, and you could've avoided this exchange. If you really think they're indistinguishable you should have no qualm about using the word embargo.
The use of tools such as embargoes and threats of economic sanctions to prevent the flow of goods in and out of a set of ports needs to have a name, and “blockade” is as good as any other.
It's been established many times in this thread that the US is not just refusing to trade but 1) Forcing trading partners to also not trade 2) Physically boarding and seizing ships that are attempting to go to the island with cargos of oil. Yet you just keep repeating the stuff about it being just about not trading with the US.
On the contrary, this statement about force and boarding has been repeated and also countered numerous times. For one, I've yet to see the "forced" claim elaborated. Leveraging retaliatory tariffs is not an act of force--that is the only "force" action I've seen mentioned so far. Furthermore, the boarding and seizing has been credibly described as a police action to enforce false flag laws, i.e. maritime impersonation.
This is a blockade. It's explicit in Trump's executive order.
Blows my mind how many americans don't or don't care that the explicit goal here is to starve human beings. It's literally a crime against humanity. One that only the US can get away with
The UN was designed to not bind the powerful nations. That's the point of the security council.
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.
The US starves anyone it does not like from natural resources and subsequently makes them buy US natural resources. It has done this to the EU, now it is trying to do it to China and Cuba.
As noted above: The US is threatening tariffs on any nation that sells oil to Cuba. That's quite different from simply refusing to trade with it, it's effectively preventing Cuba from buying oil from Mexico, among other sources.
also physically preventing ships from delivering fuel to the Island. It's all even more cynical and hypocritical when compared to the strait of Hormuz debacle, how can the US pretend that Iran must allow oil tankers unobstructed passage (international laws, ships at sea bla bla bla) when the US is deliberately preventing oil ships to travel to Cuba.
This is the exact opposite of what the US is doing to Cuba: The US isn't making Cuba by US resources, it's prohibiting Cuba from buying US resources and products.
They are threatening all other countries with secondary sanctions:
> "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.
Yes the embargo is real. The point is, what the above commenter wrote:
> The US starves anyone it does not like from natural resources and subsequently makes them buy US natural resources. It has done this to the EU, now it is trying to do it to China and Cuba
is the complete opposite of an embargo. The US is not making Cuba exclusively purchase oil from the US, it's prohibiting US oil produces from selling to Cuba.
Whatever speculation about what the US will do following some hypothetical regime change is irrelevant.
The statement clearly is not that allowing Cuba to buy resources from the US would be an embargo. The statement is that the US is embargoing (de facto blockading) Cuba today in order to force them to buy from the US tomorrow.
I saw where you insisted that instituting a blockade to force buying from the US wouldn’t be an embargo. And then I saw where you reiterated that again because you’re just nitpicking definitions.
Me recapping your chain of comments and to be low value for both of us, though. My point stands. Instituting an embargo and lifting it later once objectives are achieved doesn’t mean an embargo didn’t happen. “Yes embargo” and “No embargo” can both be true at different times. And “yes embargo” can be used to force a specific “no embargo” outcome (such as hypothetically depending on the US for resources).
The statement (true or not) is that the US is imposing blockade so that Cuba is forced to cut ties with other nations and depend solely on the US. The blockade state is an embargo. They would no longer be embargoed in the end state where they depend solely on the US.
38% of it's electricity comes from solar. They've been ahead of the curve for a long time. But solar alone is not enough to meet energy security on an island nation
What the US is doing to Cuba and has been doing to it for the past 70 years is a horrible crime.
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.
I can agree that the current de facto blockade of oil is an unwarranted act of aggression and that the embargo was bad policy but the embargo was hardly criminal. The premise of the embargo was that Cuba expropriated American property without compensation so congress was punishing the Cuban government in turn. Again, its bad policy but not really unusual or criminal per se. The embargo has also had a ton of carve out since the end of the Cold War and the US is the main supplier of agricultural good to Cuba.
The Cuban government has also engaged in a lot of bad behavior over the decades that warrants some sort of international sanction. They fueled the Angolan Civil War and made the broader conflict far worse (it was sort of their Vietnam). They prop up the worst security states around Latin America, like SEBIN in Venezuela until very recently. They were also involved in helping rig elections and suppress dissent in a number of Latin American countries.
> 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.
>He has even stated publicly it has nothing to do with NATO.
That's not true. It has always been about NATO absorbing Ukraine that is unacceptable to Russia. Putin warned about it since his Munich speech in 2007, that Georgia and Ukraine has to stay a military neutral countries or it'll result in a war with Russia. USA just decided that they may ignore it and do whatever they want anyway, pushing NATO in, after organizing "revolutions".
His stated aim has always been Russian imperial resurgence, that's what all of his long tedious speeches are about. It's not like NATO is out soliciting the membership of former Soviet satellites, these places are begging to join because they have to live beside a revanchist Russia.
>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.
Ukraine was a much poorer state and is a much poorer state than Russia. Putin's invasion has nothing to do with "EU-aligning prosperity" that never happened, but with USA and EU overthrowing Ukrainian government and placing a puppet regime that turned Ukraine from a friendly-to-neutral state into an hostile one to Russia.
Cuba has received shipments of oil and humanitarian goods from Mexico and Russia just this year, and I don't believe that the US has done anything to stop that (although the US has heavily sanctioned Russia in general for years now). However, those good received this year appear to have been free of charge.
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.
The US has had an embargo on Cuba for a long time that exempted Food and Medicine, while other countries freely traded with Cuba.
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:
"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."
I agree what the US is doing is horrible, but Cuba is not blameless on their overall situation
Yeah it's crazy when the CCP expresses frustration that you're not doing more capitalism...
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.
This was tried with computers, and failed. In Bolivia I believe.
I just watch a video on YouTube recently (don't have the link handy but a simple search should find it no problem) that explains why it's not a computational problem and when tried again with AI it still fails.
Other countries are in a Catch-22 situation regarding Cuba - for example in Canada, Canadian law penalizes companies that refuse to trade with Cuba in order to comply with U.S. sanctions, and U.S. law can penalize them if they do trade.
The current advancement of technology and warfare has opened up fascinating opportunities for powerful nations (USA). For example, given the extremely sophisticated targeting capacities of Palantir, how out of realm would taking out the entire Castro family be? I'm not talking about the morality, but simply the military options now available to the President.
There is a point where you are so weak, and your opponent is strong, that the best outcome for everyone on the whole is for you to just capitulate. Surrender.
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.
We should really be thinking of the situation in terms of individuals instead of nations. Whatever capitulation we're talking about, there's no reason to assume that the Cuban governments shares the same opinions as Cubans. The actions and interests of the government and Cubans are separate, and incur separate blameworthiness.
We're talking about different things here then, sorry if it confused you.
The situation I am speaking about has three parties: a weak party, an innocent/bystander party under the power of the weak party, and a strong party trying to displace the weak party.
This is like a hostage situation, or a child custody battle. Hope that clarifies it
The embargo on Cuba is unbelievably silly in 2026:
- 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.
My impression is that while the final outcome is yet to be seen, Syria's current administration is a decent example of a government that one would naively expect to be fairly regressive recognizing the power and prosperity granted by liberalization.
Here are some facts about Cuba and oil. The Cuban government was getting free oil from Venezuella. That ended on Jan. 3rd. Cuba was taking that oil, and reselling most of it on the open oil market. Cuba also has their own oil wells, so they can produce oil if they need it. Cuba was also having power outages prior to Jan 3rd.
Cuba also used to have the best economony in the Caribbean prior to 1959 when the Castro's took over. They switched from a free market ecomony to a state run socialist economy.
The chinesse should just supply them with a shitload of wind turbines and solar panels. Syphillitic Mumm-ra is deathly afraid of those so he's likely to leave them alone.
alterom | 18 hours 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 | 18 hours ago
davydm | 18 hours ago
jmclnx | 18 hours 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 | 18 hours ago
beepbooptheory | 18 hours ago
> Home burns down, residents blame a fire
mlmonkey | 18 hours ago
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.
jpadkins | 18 hours ago
deadbolt | 18 hours ago
kelseyfrog | 18 hours ago
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urfascism
WarmWash | 18 hours ago
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.
anigbrowl | 17 hours ago
WarmWash | 16 hours ago
marknutter | 17 hours ago
ceejayoz | 17 hours ago
BobaFloutist | 17 hours ago
It feels like there's no "one-size-fits-all" ideal level of intervention in a dysfunctional/repressive government. Sometimes if you just leave them alone, they "inevitably" liberalize, reaping the benefits. Sometimes if you just leave them alone they calcify, form coalitions, and actively interfere in Western democracies. Sometimes if you intervene a little, you can help support the people oust their rulers. Sometimes if you intervene a little, you just harm innocent civilians, and entrench the power of the regime. And so on and so forth for every possible level of intervention.
Sure, some of it is going to inherently depend on the actual level of the power disparity, on any counteracting support the regime is getting from your adversaries, on the particular details of your intentions and your intervention, on the timing, etc. But sometimes it really feels like nobody knows what they're doing with foreign policy, and sometimes you get lucky and the country where you literally nuke two major cities just sort of shrugs, shakes your hand, and becomes one of your closest allies with a great deal of goodwill between citizens, and on the other hand sometimes you put boots on the ground an funnel enormous sums of money and (at least hypothetically) try to maintain positive relationships with the locals in a huge nation-building project and after decades you end up with...nothing.
So, to go back to what you said, sometimes it feels like tolerating the fascist country in your backyard might be the best way to turn it into a non-fascist country. And, on the other hand, sometimes it might be the worst way. These things seem difficult.
insane_dreamer | 5 hours ago
do you even know anything about South American history?
the US literally installs fascists in those countries
davydm | 18 hours ago
ceejayoz | 18 hours ago
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...
culi | 8 hours ago
M95D | 43 minutes ago
Psillisp | 17 hours ago
A human would call it generational depravity of the powerful.
api | 17 hours ago
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.)
Tangurena2 | 17 hours ago
b3ing | 17 hours ago
Tangurena2 | 17 hours ago
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.
janderson215 | 17 hours ago
> 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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
reducesuffering | 17 hours ago
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.
WaxProlix | 18 hours ago
ReptileMan | 18 hours ago
pasquinelli | 18 hours ago
Manuel_D | 18 hours ago
vrganj | 18 hours ago
Manuel_D | 18 hours ago
vrganj | 18 hours ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/world/americas/venezuela-...
Manuel_D | 17 hours ago
lostlogin | 17 hours ago
Even with Russia adding Iranian attacks on US bases, the US remains quiet.
It’s a strange world.
Manuel_D | 17 hours ago
lostlogin | an hour ago
pasquinelli | 17 hours ago
anigbrowl | 17 hours ago
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.
kyboren | 16 hours ago
The USA, like all serious countries, seeks to defend and advance its interests. Those interests include the suppression of self-declared enemies like Cuba and Iran, or seeking regime change so they cease being self-declared enemies of the US.
The irony of your claim that the US is starving the Cuban people is that in fact, the US could go that far and it would actually end the enmity from Cuba. But they haven't and they won't. It would harm other interests, possibly engender enmity elsewhere, and outside of total war Americans don't play the game that dirty.
But if people widely believe that's what the US is doing anyway, and they're "doing the time" without having actually having "done the crime", then considering that actually doing it would end the enmity from Cuba, it starts to look awfully attractive to Just Do It. So claiming that they are, when they actually aren't, only makes it more likely that they will.
Anyway, given that both ex-communist states China and Russia have demanded economic reforms from the recalcitrant Cuban regime--which have not been forthcoming--and that food is not embargoed, I think the impoverishment and hunger of the Cuban people can't credibly be blamed on "el bloqueo".
Cuba now imports their sugar--from the US of all places! You really think that it's American policy starving Cubans?
Manuel_D | 16 hours ago
An embargo is analogous to a boycott: you and your friends decide not to shop at a given store. But people who disagree and still want to shop have the ability to do so.
A blockade is like people standing around the store with batons and pepper spray, promising to apprehend anyone who tries to shop at the store.
The latter is obviously a much more forceful move. In fact, it's an act of war.
kyboren | 15 hours ago
It's not a blockade, and everyone involved is simply exercising their sovereign rights. But it is mildly coercive. Which, obviously, is the whole point.
Manuel_D | 15 hours ago
If people want to say that the embargo is coercive and bad, that's fine.
pasquinelli | 17 hours ago
pasquinelli | 16 hours ago
daedrdev | 17 hours ago
mothballed | 17 hours ago
daedrdev | 17 hours ago
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%.
pasquinelli | 17 hours ago
kyboren | 16 hours ago
pasquinelli | 9 hours ago
palmotea | 8 hours ago
The single biggest problem would be rebuilding the US manufacturing base. Once that happens, the US would be fine. America's probably capable of autarky: it's got the natural resources, population size, and technology.
pasquinelli | 7 hours ago
palmotea | 7 hours ago
The US didn't impose the condition of being a resource-poor island on Cuba, nor did it impose the condition of economic mismanagement on it (apparently so bad even the Soviets complained about it). The US imposed the condition of a trade embargo, and that's it.
mitthrowaway2 | 18 hours ago
smallmancontrov | 18 hours ago
Cuba didn't have the ability to break the back of American labor. China did. That's the difference.
xp84 | 17 hours ago
mothballed | 18 hours ago
culi | 8 hours ago
There are only 2 countries in all of South America that DON'T have the experience of having a democratically elected leader ousted in a US-backed coup and replaced by a dictator.
Only 2. (Colombia and Uruguay)
pseudohadamard | 5 hours ago
righthand | 18 hours ago
Arodex | 17 hours ago
Manuel_D | 18 hours ago
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.
ceejayoz | 18 hours ago
> 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.
Manuel_D | 17 hours ago
1. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-we-know-oil-tanker-the-ski...
ceejayoz | 17 hours ago
Manuel_D | 14 hours ago
We don't know with certainty what it's intent was, but it's likely it was trying to sell oil to Cuba surreptitiously, so as to avoid triggering retaliatory tariffs against Colombia.
The ship was free to dock and offload in Cuba, but that would trigger tarrifs against Colombian exports the US. Which is why it turned around when it realized it was spotted. All the coast guard did was ensure that the ship docked at its stated destination.
lostlogin | 17 hours ago
Manuel_D | 17 hours ago
swat535 | 12 hours ago
In fact, they are actively in the middle of an illegal war with Iran, never mind the fact of violating the ceasefire by causing a blocking.. I'm not going to go into details regarding the US record of breaking international law (which I'm sure you're aware of), but I digresses.
Meanwhile, you're lecturing us whilst completely disregarding the main focus of the article, which is the humanitarian crisis United State is causing across the world.
I, for one am proud of my country (Canada) for defying US "embargo". Canada is actively opposing its effects by providing humanitarian aid and maintaining normal trade/diplomatic relations with Cuba.
You can expect many other nations to follow.
ricardobeat | 18 hours ago
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.
Manuel_D | 18 hours ago
ceejayoz | 17 hours ago
What would your reaction be if China imposed tariffs on US-Canadian border crossings and seized American ships over it?
Manuel_D | 17 hours ago
> 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.
vrganj | 17 hours ago
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.
lostlogin | 17 hours ago
It’s a little less two faced now though, as this administration ignores US laws too.
ceejayoz | 17 hours ago
Yes. And that is not what happens here!
None of this oil is entering the US at all!
Manuel_D | 17 hours ago
ceejayoz | 17 hours ago
Manuel_D | 17 hours ago
I'm not sure what in my comment you think contradicts this.
ceejayoz | 17 hours ago
Manuel_D | 16 hours ago
I can see how this wording makes it sound like the US is charging a tariff on the oil entering Cuba, but that is not the case. The tariff in that quote is referring to the tariffs the US is promising to place on counties that don't participate in the embargo.
baseballdork | 16 hours ago
If you trade oil with cuba, then any trade with the US will be subject to the tariff.
defen | 17 hours ago
shimman | 17 hours ago
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...
Sabinus | 9 hours ago
No, there isn't. There also isn't anything illegal about the USA threatening to tarrif it's own trade with countries that trade with Cuba. If a vessel fakes it's flag to avoid that attribution, it is then stateless, and the USA is allowed to board it.
ibejoeb | 17 hours ago
luizfzs | 17 hours ago
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-...
iAMkenough | 17 hours ago
It’s a shakedown, meant to harm Cubans.
akramachamarei | 16 hours ago
iAMkenough | 13 hours ago
akramachamarei | 12 hours ago
Paradigm2020 | 10 hours ago
Now explain the fisherman boats...
pibaker | 11 hours ago
By the same logic the mafia aren't disrupting your business when they ask for a protection fee — just pay up and the same mafia won't empty a clip into your store during business hours.
By the same logic street muggers are not actually taking your stuffs by force — just hand them your wallet and you get to keep your jacket and your life.
ASalazarMX | 18 hours ago
Oh, so USA is only forcing their trade partners to embargo Cuba! That makes thing better, right?
imvgikviktbt | 17 hours ago
ceejayoz | 17 hours ago
> 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".
Manuel_D | 16 hours ago
If Mexico decided to keep sending oil to Cuba, and the US started sizing ships carrying Mexican oil bound for Cuba that would be a blockade.
ceejayoz | 16 hours ago
You seem very focused on some pedantic distinction here that just looks goofy from a practical standpoint. The US is intentionally cutting off oil supplies to Cuba. Call it whatever the fuck you want.
Manuel_D | 15 hours ago
The difference between a blockade and an embargo is not small: the former is an act of war. If you really think this is no meaningful distinction between a blockade and an embargo, then how about you just correctly refer to it as an embargo? If there really is no meaningful distinction then why not just use the right word?
ceejayoz | 15 hours ago
I think you're very focused on finding reasons the blockade isn't one, to the point of some severe contortions. I'm not sure why you think the US is leery of acts of war; we've committed a bunch in the last year, including multiple preemptive decapatation strikes of world leaders.
You think it's an embargo; I (and much of the world) think it's a blockade. Whoever's right, this'd be deeply shitty antisocial behavior if you did it to your neighbor, and likely to lead to blows.
Manuel_D | 15 hours ago
This is not what's happening in Cuba. Countries are deciding to participate in the embargo because they don't want to have their exports to the US tariffed. Emphasis on decided. These countries have the option to continue trading with Cuba and having their imports tariffed.
A blockade does not afford other countries that option. The Royal Navy seized any and all vessels bound to Germany during WW1. There was no option to simply accept a tariff and continue trading with Germany. Because this was a blockade not an embargo.
> we've committed a bunch in the last year, including multiple preemptive decapatation strikes of world leaders.
Correct, like a blockade, those are indeed acts of war. If the US was bombing Cuba, then the US would indeed be at war with Cuba. But that's not happening in Cuba.
ceejayoz | 15 hours ago
Extensive evidence of this occurring has been repeatedly presented to you.
Manuel_D | 15 hours ago
ceejayoz | 15 hours ago
Manuel_D | 14 hours ago
ceejayoz | 13 hours ago
Manuel_D | 13 hours ago
You can call it a blockade a thousand times, that doesn't make it true.
ceejayoz | 13 hours ago
You know this isn’t true, but continue to assert it. I gave you a link to a non-false flag tanker that was forced away by the Coast Guard and escorted out for several days.
Manuel_D | 13 hours ago
The ship could have made port in Cuba and unloaded it's oil. But then Colombia would be hit with tariffs. The threat of tariffs made the ship turn around on its own volition, not because the coast guard deployed force to stop the ship.
ceejayoz | 12 hours ago
Seizing ships isn’t a blockade.
Turning away ships isn’t a blockade.
The UN, Cuba, and major national and international news outlets considering it one doesn’t count.
Running out of oil and massive power outages doesn’t count.
Trump’s threats of strikes don’t count.
Apparently nothing does. The Cuban Missile Crisis doesn’t even meet your standard.
Manuel_D | 12 hours ago
> Turning away ships isn’t a blockade.
If the vessels were legally flagged, both of these are indeed actions of a blockade!
You're just ignoring the fact that the ships the US seized were flying false flags and are subject to seizure regardless of the embargo.
And in the case of the Ocean Mariner, the ship wasn't forcibly turned away by the coast guard. They changed course to the Dominican Republic (which was its purported destination anyway...) on their own volition when the realized they were being tracked. The could have continued to Cuba if they wanted to, but that would trigger retaliatory tariffs.
> The Cuban Missile Crisis doesn’t even meet your standard.
Yes it was a blockade! The US military deployed its forces with orders to seize Soviet ships bound for Cuba (though they turned away before any ships were actually boarded).
ceejayoz | 12 hours ago
Where is “it’s not a blockade if the ships don’t have papers” set out in international law?
> Yes it was a blockade!
Funny. Kennedy tried your exact denialist tactic - they called it a quarantine.
History, of course, isn’t fooled.
> The US military deployed its forces with orders to seize Soviet ships bound for Cuba (though they turned away before any ships were actually boarded).
And you are somehow privy to the Coast Guard’s orders in the Ocean Mariner case? How do you know what would have happened if they made for Cuba?
beepbooptheory | 14 hours ago
Being direct about these kinds of questions would maybe help us understand where you are coming from here.
Manuel_D | 13 hours ago
The other important dimension is that countries participating in the embargo are choosing to participate in the embargo. This is distinct from a blockade which is done unilaterally. The Royal Navy didn't let ships into Germany ports during WW1 if they paid a tariff. No, they seized ships bound for Germany, because that was an actual blockade.
An embargo is when countries decline to trade with you on their own accord.
A blockade is when a country uses military force to physically stop other countries from trading with you, even if those other countries want to trade with you.
They're pretty substantially different.
ceejayoz | 13 hours ago
An act of war also isn’t the same as being in one. It takes two to tango, to some extent. Many acts of war do not result in one.
Act of war, no war: https://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/02/18/britain.marines/...
beepbooptheory | 12 hours ago
Or maybe more: "ok USA might have it a little out for Cuba, but remember, everyone else hates them too, otherwise they would be trading with them"?
Manuel_D | 12 hours ago
When people say that the US is blockading Cuba I'm not sure if they are genuinely misinformed and think that the US Navy and Coast Guard are physically apprehending any ships trying to dock in Cuba, or if they are just ignorant about the difference between a blockade and an embargo.
phpnode | 10 hours ago
Manuel_D | 9 hours ago
If people really think it's a minor semantics difference, then they should just be honest and correctly refer to the situation as an embargo, not a blockade.
beepbooptheory | 6 hours ago
Manuel_D | 4 hours ago
If this were a blockade then the US would be boarding Russian oil tankers even if they're legally flagged as a Russian vessel.
If you really think the distinction between blockade and embargo is irrelevant then we can just acknowledge that it's an embargo, not a blockade, and move on.
palmotea | 8 hours ago
You all are. Why not just concede it's an embargo not a blockade and move on?
> Is the US preventing most oil from reaching Cuba or not?
Sometimes questions like that obscure more than they elucidate. If you're debating if a killing is murder or involuntary manslaughter, it doesn't prove your point to ask if the man is dead.
beepbooptheory | 6 hours ago
Just, please, tell it to me straight, I'm a little slow. Is that what we are saying? That everyone is claiming murder, but actually it's more involuntary?
palmotea | 3 hours ago
It's a distinction between two different things that have some similarities (in this case, a cessation of trade) but important differences.
j_maffe | 17 hours ago
MSKJ | 17 hours ago
legitster | 18 hours ago
It has taken on distinctly more "blockade-like" attributes.
dyauspitr | 17 hours ago
elmomle | 17 hours ago
Manuel_D | 17 hours ago
There are plenty of ships that move good and resources to Cuba that don't get boarded.
RobertoG | 17 hours ago
Manuel_D | 17 hours ago
swat535 | 15 hours ago
United States is still under the impression that it's post WWII era..
The good news is that American's grip is slipping and will no longer be able to exert the same level of power in the next decade or so.
You're right, no one is entitled to trade wit US but the US is not entitled to trade with the rest of the world either, including China, Russia, Europe and Middle East.
I think Americans should realize that the post WII era is well passed and "strong arming" nations isn't going to work.
mirzap | 17 hours ago
Manuel_D | 17 hours ago
Maritime law exists, and enforcing it is not an act of piracy.
voxic11 | 17 hours ago
voxic11 | 17 hours ago
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...
j_maffe | 17 hours ago
UN experts condemn US executive order imposing fuel blockade on Cuba https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/02/un-experts-c...
Manuel_D | 17 hours ago
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.
j_maffe | 17 hours ago
Manuel_D | 17 hours ago
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.
j_maffe | 17 hours ago
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/29/us-russian-o...
Manuel_D | 16 hours ago
If you really believe there's no distinction between an embargo and a blockade then you should have just correctly used the term "embargo". This isn't pedantry, this is the difference between an act of war and an economic move.
akramachamarei | 16 hours ago
thunky | 12 hours ago
Because of US pressure, yes?
If the police prevent all grocery stores from selling you food and you starve, who do you blame: the police or the grocery stores?
Manuel_D | 12 hours ago
> If the police prevent all grocery stores from selling you food and you starve, who do you blame: the police or the grocery stores?
Except that's not analogous to Cuba's situation. It's more like if the grocery store sells you food, the the grocery store is hit with a bigger tax bill. So the grocery store chooses not to sell you food.
The police preventing the grocery store from selling you food would be analogous to a blockade.
thunky | 11 hours ago
And you also risk pissing off the mafia boss and will suffer the consequences elsewhere. It's not a simple choice to sell or not sell with no strings attached. Its one power drunk bully and everyone else.
skeledrew | 17 hours ago
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?
Manuel_D | 16 hours ago
vrganj | 14 hours ago
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.
insane_dreamer | 6 hours ago
imvgikviktbt | 17 hours ago
shimman | 17 hours ago
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.
imvgikviktbt | 17 hours ago
OutOfHere | 17 hours ago
akramachamarei | 16 hours ago
akramachamarei | 16 hours ago
TiredOfLife | 4 hours ago
georgemcbay | 17 hours ago
...just like the war in Iran isn't a war.
These important reminders brought to you by the Ministry of Truth.
Someone | 17 hours ago
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.
Manuel_D | 17 hours ago
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.
j_maffe | 17 hours ago
Edit: corrected it to blockade
Manuel_D | 17 hours ago
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.
dpark | 17 hours ago
Manuel_D | 15 hours ago
dpark | 13 hours ago
Oh, wait. Those ships are all sanctioned so would be seized. Interesting conundrum.
Manuel_D | 12 hours ago
Sabinus | 12 hours ago
dpark | 12 hours ago
Responding to reporters' questions on March 29 about whether the ship would be allowed to dock, Trump said, "We don't mind somebody getting a boatload...because they have to survive."
Manuel_D | 12 hours ago
dpark | 12 hours ago
j_maffe | 17 hours ago
Manuel_D | 16 hours ago
A blockade is an act of war where a country physically stops vessels from entering port in the target of the blockade. There is no choice in a blockade, the country enforcing the blockade is acting unilaterally
If you really think this is a distinction without a difference, then you could've just used the word "embargo" and avoided this exchange. But you didn't, you chose to call it a blockade, which is incorrect.
MattPalmer1086 | 15 hours ago
Pretending that what the US does here is the same as if any other country did it is disengenuous.
It's an effective blockade.
Manuel_D | 15 hours ago
If you think the embargo is bad, that's fine. What I'm objecting to is people calling it a blockade.
MattPalmer1086 | 15 hours ago
dpark | 17 hours ago
It’s interesting to see you argue semantics because it implies you agree that the blockade is wrong.
Manuel_D | 15 hours ago
dpark | 13 hours ago
The whole “false flags” argument is also a stretch given that these ships are flying false flags to avoid US sanctions. “We’re not embargoing, we’re just sanctioning” is kind of a nonsense statement when we seize sanctioned ships. The warrant to seize “Skipper” was issued because it was carrying sanctioned oil, not because of the flag it was flying.
This is an embargo, enforced with both economic and military strength. Again, the fact that you want to argue pointless semantics indicates you believe the embargo is not defensible.
Manuel_D | 12 hours ago
If you're talking about the Ocean Mariner, it was not threatened by the USCG. The ship was carrying Colombian oil, and if it docked in Cuba that would trigger tariffs on Colombian imports.
So the ship lied and said it was bound for the Dominican Republic and tried to sneak into Cuba. When it realized it was spotted by the coast guard, it turned towards its stated destination because they knew they were being watched and if they docked in Cuba then Colombia would be hit with tariffs.
If the ship continued to sail to Cuba and the coast guard sized the ship that would be a blockade.
> This is an embargo, enforced with both economic and military strength. Again, the fact that you want to argue pointless semantics indicates you believe the embargo is not defensible.
Nowhere did I argue that it isn't an embargo. I've been repeatedly explaining that it is an embargo, rather than a blockade. If you think I'm denying that this is an embargo, you've far off the mark of what I've been saying in this thread
dpark | 12 hours ago
Manuel_D | 12 hours ago
dpark | 12 hours ago
The situation is a blockade which is a superset of an embargo.
JKCalhoun | 17 hours ago
What is Cuba to do about this non-blockade, embargo?
Manuel_D | 16 hours ago
cwillu | 17 hours ago
anigbrowl | 17 hours ago
jasonlotito | 15 hours ago
insane_dreamer | 6 hours ago
this is exactly what the US is doing
dirtbagskier | 18 hours ago
Sorry. Freebies sometimes run out.
culi | 8 hours ago
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/02/un-experts-c...
This is collective punishment and considered a war crime under Fourth Geneva Convention
louwrentius | 18 hours ago
RiverCrochet | 18 hours ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Period
wiradikusuma | 18 hours ago
some_random | 18 hours ago
nso | 17 hours ago
reillyse | 17 hours ago
akramachamarei | 15 hours ago
culi | 8 hours ago
Blows my mind how many americans don't or don't care that the explicit goal here is to starve human beings. It's literally a crime against humanity. One that only the US can get away with
M95D | 46 minutes ago
mrguyorama | 17 hours ago
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.
asHqar | 18 hours ago
This way they can control everyone.
some_random | 18 hours ago
dgacmu | 18 hours ago
reillyse | 17 hours ago
amanaplanacanal | 17 hours ago
palmotea | 17 hours ago
Is the new Venezuelan leader still trying to send Cuba oil? Or has she stopped that?
dpark | 14 hours ago
Manuel_D | 18 hours ago
ashg100 | 17 hours ago
> "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.
Manuel_D | 17 hours ago
dpark | 14 hours ago
The US is also not actually sending oil to Cuba so the scenario above is hypothetical, not real.
Manuel_D | 14 hours ago
> The US starves anyone it does not like from natural resources and subsequently makes them buy US natural resources. It has done this to the EU, now it is trying to do it to China and Cuba
is the complete opposite of an embargo. The US is not making Cuba exclusively purchase oil from the US, it's prohibiting US oil produces from selling to Cuba.
Whatever speculation about what the US will do following some hypothetical regime change is irrelevant.
dpark | 13 hours ago
The statement clearly is not that allowing Cuba to buy resources from the US would be an embargo. The statement is that the US is embargoing (de facto blockading) Cuba today in order to force them to buy from the US tomorrow.
Manuel_D | 13 hours ago
dpark | 13 hours ago
Me recapping your chain of comments and to be low value for both of us, though. My point stands. Instituting an embargo and lifting it later once objectives are achieved doesn’t mean an embargo didn’t happen. “Yes embargo” and “No embargo” can both be true at different times. And “yes embargo” can be used to force a specific “no embargo” outcome (such as hypothetically depending on the US for resources).
Manuel_D | 12 hours ago
"The US will be Cuba's exclusive supplier of oil."
Are these not polar opposites?
dpark | 12 hours ago
The statement (true or not) is that the US is imposing blockade so that Cuba is forced to cut ties with other nations and depend solely on the US. The blockade state is an embargo. They would no longer be embargoed in the end state where they depend solely on the US.
culi | 8 hours ago
ricardobeat | 18 hours ago
ceejayoz | 17 hours ago
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/as-the-us-starves-it-of...
culi | 8 hours ago
xorgun | 18 hours ago
vrganj | 18 hours ago
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.
ch4s3 | 17 hours ago
> 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.
selivanovp | 14 hours ago
That's not true. It has always been about NATO absorbing Ukraine that is unacceptable to Russia. Putin warned about it since his Munich speech in 2007, that Georgia and Ukraine has to stay a military neutral countries or it'll result in a war with Russia. USA just decided that they may ignore it and do whatever they want anyway, pushing NATO in, after organizing "revolutions".
ch4s3 | 8 hours ago
selivanovp | 14 hours ago
Ukraine was a much poorer state and is a much poorer state than Russia. Putin's invasion has nothing to do with "EU-aligning prosperity" that never happened, but with USA and EU overthrowing Ukrainian government and placing a puppet regime that turned Ukraine from a friendly-to-neutral state into an hostile one to Russia.
some_random | 18 hours ago
amanaplanacanal | 17 hours ago
eschulz | 18 hours ago
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.
daedrdev | 18 hours ago
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...
I agree what the US is doing is horrible, but Cuba is not blameless on their overall situationsimpaticoder | 17 hours ago
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.
janderson215 | 17 hours ago
norwegiandemon | 16 hours ago
I just watch a video on YouTube recently (don't have the link handy but a simple search should find it no problem) that explains why it's not a computational problem and when tried again with AI it still fails.
echoangle | 12 hours ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn
reillyse | 17 hours ago
daedrdev | 17 hours ago
_whiteCaps_ | 17 hours ago
EcommerceFlow | 18 hours ago
WarmWash | 17 hours ago
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.
j_maffe | 17 hours ago
WarmWash | 16 hours ago
akramachamarei | 15 hours ago
morkalork | 14 hours ago
WarmWash | 12 hours ago
morkalork | 10 hours ago
Sounds pretty rapey to me. I certainly hope you've never made similar remarks to a date before.
WarmWash | 10 hours ago
The situation I am speaking about has three parties: a weak party, an innocent/bystander party under the power of the weak party, and a strong party trying to displace the weak party.
This is like a hostage situation, or a child custody battle. Hope that clarifies it
legitster | 17 hours ago
- 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.
BobaFloutist | 17 hours ago
davidfekke | 17 hours ago
Cuba also used to have the best economony in the Caribbean prior to 1959 when the Castro's took over. They switched from a free market ecomony to a state run socialist economy.
rastrojero2000 | 16 hours ago