For more than six decades, U.S. policy toward Cuba has been based not on diplomacy but on economic warfare.
This week, Alfred de Zayas, a Cuban-American lawyer who worked in the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, speaks to Belly of the Beast about how and why U.S. policy toward Cuba — even before the recent oil blockade — violates international law.
Also:
Trump Administration Beats the Drums of War
Miami Herald Funds Dodgy, War-Mongering Poll
The Science Behind Cuba’s Alzheimer’s Breakthrough
From Mercenaries to Medicare: U.S. Hypes Baseless Claims
Building Bridges from NOLA to Cuba
Colombia to Send Cuba Solar Panels
Spain’s Biggest Airline to Suspend Flights to Cuba
Amid U.S. Pressure, Cuba Welcomes Russian Industry
Cuba Accepts 91 Deportees from U.S.
“They Are Apologists to Crimes Against Humanity”
“Embargo,” “sanctions,” “pressure,” “leverage.” According to Cuban-American international law expert Alfred de Zayas, the neutral-sounding words used to describe U.S. policy toward Cuba helps justify economic warfare.
By using terms like this is, “you are actually playing the game of the United States,” de Zayas told Belly of the Beast journalist Liz Oliva Fernández, because they imply “that the country imposing sanctions has a moral or legal right to do so — which is not the case.”
De Zayas, who served as a UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order, argues that what Washington calls “sanctions” are more accurately described as “unilateral coercive measures,” the term used by the United Nations to describe actions taken by one state to bring about regime change in another in violation of international law.
He explains how unilateral coercive measures restrict access to food, medicine and basic infrastructure for ordinary Cubans. These measures, he said, amount to a form of collective punishment — one that has been repeatedly condemned by the international community.
Corporate media outlets, de Zayas argues, normalize illegal economic warfare through neutral-sounding language and by downplaying how the Cuban people are impacted. The upshot: “They actually are apologists of this crime against humanity.”
Trump Administration Beats the Drums of War
U.S. government officials have been told to “ramp up preparations for possible military operations against Cuba,” according to a report published Tuesday by Zeteo, which quoted “two sources familiar with the situation and another person briefed on it.”
The report comes one day after Trump said at the White House that the U.S. “may stop by Cuba after we finish with [Iran].”
Trump has sent different messages depending on the day, saying both a deal with Cuba is “close” and threatening to “take” the island.
In recent weeks, Cuba's President Miguel Díaz-Canel has reaffirmed the Cuban government’s longstanding position that the country is open to dialogue with the U.S. government.
“We could reach agreements beneficial to both peoples and both nations,” Díaz-Canel told Newsweek’s Tom O’Connor, citing “investments from U.S. firms” as one example, as well as “migration, security, the environment, science and innovation, trade, education, culture and sports.”
Democrats push back
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) says he will force a Senate vote next week on the Cuba War Powers Resolution, which seeks to prevent the U.S. from a military attack on Cuba without congressional approval, El Nuevo Día reported.
Kaine, the leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, introduced the bill a month ago.
For more on Trump's threats of military action in Cuba, check out Lee Schlenker's latest article in Responsible Statecraft.
Miami Herald Funds Dodgy, War-Mongering Poll
With Trump repeatedly threatening military action against Cuba, the Miami Herald has published a poll that claims most Cuban Americans in South Florida support a U.S. attack on the island.
The telephone poll, commissioned by the Herald and carried out by Bendixen & Amandi International and The Tarrance Group, reportedly surveyed 800 randomly selected Cubans and Cuban Americans living in South Florida.
“What the community is saying here is they’re giving a green light to the Trump administration to go in militarily in Cuba and do whatever it is that they have to do to remove the regime,” pollster Fernand Amandi told the Herald.
The poll and the accompanying article serve to bolster the Trump administration’s case for regime change in Cuba, which Trump has justified by pointing to his support among Cuban Americans in South Florida.
“We have a lot of great Cuban Americans, all of whom just about voted for me,” said Trump on Monday. “Cuba’s a failing nation, and we’re going to do this.”
While Trump won most of the Cuban-American vote in Florida in the 2024 election, there is no evidence they voted for him so he would carry out regime change in Cuba. On the contrary, a Florida International University (FIU) poll that year found that policies toward Cuba were relatively unimportant to Cuban Americans in South Florida — behind the economy, health care and immigration. Even policies toward Russia and China ranked as more important to Cuban Americans than policies toward Cuba.
The Herald article neglects to provide this context and does not mention the FIU poll.
Leading questions, predictable answers
The poll’s question that gave the Herald its headline — “Cuban Americans support U.S. military attack on Cuba” — offered four possible answers, the first three of which endorse military intervention. Respondents were asked whether they support military intervention to remove the current Cuban government, support military intervention only to address humanitarian needs, or support military intervention for both purposes. Only then were they asked if they opposed U.S. military intervention in Cuba. Answers to the first three questions totaled 79% of respondents.
The notion that an unprovoked U.S. military intervention — which would be violent and likely kill civilians — could have “humanitarian purposes,” is an obvious contradiction in terms. The question is also inherently flawed because it ignores the glaring reality that the U.S. has played a central role in producing the very humanitarian crisis it somehow would be resolving through military action.
“Brilliant analysis! ‘Military intervention without bloodshed,'” wrote Joe Garcia, a former Democratic member of Congress and onetime executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, in a sarcastic post on X.
“Designed to manufacture consent”
The poll also found that 73% of respondents believed the Cuban government was to blame for the humanitarian and economic crisis in Cuba — an unsurprising result given that the Herald, along with almost every other media outlet in South Florida, has steered clear of reporting on the impact of U.S. sanctions on the Cuban people.
In addition, the poll found that respondents were split on whether the Trump administration should negotiate directly with members of the “current communist leadership or political establishment.” It’s not clear with whom else the U.S. would negotiate.
Cuban Americans for Cuba, an organization that advocates for ending the embargo, said the poll was “designed to manufacture consent for military invasion, not to understand what our community actually thinks.” Check out their post HERE.
The group questioned why Cuban Americans living outside of South Florida were not polled.
“A poll of Marco Rubio’s backyard is not a mandate from 2.5 million Cuban Americans,” according to the group.
The Herald did not explain why the poll didn’t extend beyond South Florida, although in an editorial about its findings, the newspaper’s editorial board acknowledged that “it’s very likely that the results of this poll differ greatly from how other groups of people in South Florida, and Americans in general, feel about tactics in Cuba.”
The editorial also conceded that "opinion polls shouldn’t dictate American foreign policy." And yet the editorial’s headline — “South Florida’s Cubans made their wishes clear and that must weigh heavily on Rubio” — appears designed to pressure Rubio (and Trump) away from any deal with Cuba and toward a more aggressive stance.
Given the poll’s leading questions and flawed methodology, it’s not at all clear the results should weigh heavily on anyone.
The poll itself shows that as many Cuban Americans favor negotiations with Cuban leadership as oppose them — a finding the Herald’s editorial glosses over. Moreover, the entire poll was not published, so readers are left with what is presumably a curated version of the findings.
Meanwhile, neither the poll nor the Herald's article and editorial reflect the complexity of viewpoints about Cuba policy held by many Cuban Americans and the seemingly contradictory responses depending on what question they are asked (or how it is asked). For example, in the 2024 FIU poll, most Cuban Americans said they supported the continuation of the embargo, but most also said they supported allowing for “unrestricted” food and medicine exports to Cuba.
The Science Behind Cuba’s Alzheimer’s Breakthrough
Colorado-based physician Dr. Bill Blanchet has spent years researching Cuba’s biopharmaceutical industry. He says its latest product, NeuralCIM, a breakthrough treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, could change the lives of millions of people in the United States, but is blocked by the same policy that is claiming Cuban lives.
Over the past year, 52 of Dr. Blanchet’s patients have travelled to Havana to receive the treatment, and he’s been monitoring their progress. The drug has been approved by Cuba’s Ministry of Health for the treatment of mild to moderate Alzheimer’s, and is free for Cubans.
In this interview, Dr. Blanchet explains the science behind the medication and its potential in helping with Parkinson’s disease and traumatic brain injuries.
Stay tuned for the release of Teresita’s Dream, a Belly of the Beast documentary that tells the inspiring story of Dr. Teresita Rodríguez, the Cuban scientist who helped develop NeuralCIM while caretaking her mother with Alzheimer’s.
The film will screen at the Havana Film Festival New York on Sunday, May 3, at Quad Cinema in Manhattan.
Marco Rubio’s State Department has informed Congress that up to 5,000 Cubans are fighting on Russia’s side in the Ukraine war, Axios reports.
“There are significant indicators that the regime knowingly tolerated, enabled, or selectively facilitated the flow” of Cubans to the Russian army, the report says, though it admits "the public record does not prove Havana officially dispatched all Cuban fighters.”
It’s not the first time the Trump administration has accused the Cuban government of sending mercenaries to Russia without providing any credible evidence. Last year, the State Department used this unsubstantiated allegation to lobby countries to vote against a UN resolution opposing the U.S. embargo on Cuba.
There are Cubans fighting in the Ukraine war, although it’s unclear how many (the source for the 5,000 figure seems to be Ukrainian intelligence).
Some of these Cubans say they were tricked into joining the war through promises of Russian passports.
Neither Ukraine nor the U.S. has offered any evidence to back their claim that the Cuban government is “enabling” or “facilitating” the enlistment of their citizens to the Russian army.
Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) released a statement last year calling the accusations that Cuba was involved in the war "slanderous."
Cuba, MINREX said, had taken steps to "neutralize recruitment" in Cuba, citing that, since 2023, Cuban courts had found 26 people guilty of mercenarism in Ukraine, with sentences ranging from five to 14 years in prison.
From mercenaries to medicare
The unsubstantiated accusations leveled by the Trump administration at the Cuban government are becoming increasingly far-fetched.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that Cuba is “running” a “racket” defrauding Medicare in Florida.
Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) released a statement calling the accusations “a new slander fabricated by anti-Cuban sectors in that country.”
The statement says the Cuban government has prosecuted several people in Cuba “involved in US Medicare frauds,” and that the U.S. government “has exchanged and coordinated with the Cuban Government the implementation of several joint actions on terrorism, legal assistance, commercial security, illicit trafficking in drugs, alien smuggling and migration fraud, cyber-crimes, money laundering and financial crimes.”
Building Bridges from NOLA to Cuba
Musa Alves, a Brazilian-American designer living in New Orleans, and Carolina Leyva, a Cuban American from Florida who is studying medicine in Havana, have joined forces to support the Cuban people even as their government wages economic war on the island.
Watch a video about the work of their organizations, From Nola to Cuba and Corazón con Cuba, HERE.
Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro on Tuesday said on X that his government is preparing to send “a first shipment” of solar panels to Cuba. The same day, a plane carrying a donation of medications and food flew from Bogotá to Havana. The number of panels, or whether there will be other shipments, was not disclosed.
China recently donated 5,000 solar panels as Cuba hurries to shift to renewable energies to survive Trump’s oil blockade.
Spain’s Biggest Airline to Suspend Flights to Cuba
Iberia, Spain’s main international airline, is suspending flights to Cuba beginning in June, Spanish newspaper El País reports.
The suspension stems from Trump’s oil blockade, which prevents Cuba from refueling planes. Iberia joins several airlines that have announced a suspension of their Cuba routes, dealing another blow to the island’s tourism industry.
Amid U.S. Pressure, Cuba Welcomes Russian Industry
Cuba has authorized Russian companies to manage and operate industrial facilities on the island, Cuban and Russian media reported. The announcement came from Roman Chekushov, Russia’s Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, who said the move seeks to make Cuba more appealing to Russian investment.
As the U.S. has increased pressure on Cuba in recent years, the island has signed several agreements with Russia and China in areas like energy, finance, agriculture and tourism.
Cuba Accepts 91 Deportees from U.S.
A new U.S. deportation flight landed in Havana Thursday with 91 Cubans, according to Cuba's Interior Ministry. The total number of Cubans deported since January 2025 is now nearly 2,000. Even as the U.S. has ramped up its hostility toward Cuba, its government has continued to accept monthly deportation flights.
Watch our reporting of the arrival of one of those deportation flights HERE.
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Boletines en Español | English Newsletters Archives Durante más de seis décadas, la política de Estados Unidos hacia Cuba no se ha basado en la diplomacia, sino en la guerra económica. Esta semana, Alfred de Zayas, un abogado cubanoamericano que trabajó en la Oficina del Alto Comisionado de las Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos, conversa con Belly of the Beast sobre cómo y por qué la política de Estados Unidos hacia Cuba —incluso antes del reciente bloqueo petrolero— viola el derecho...
Boletines en Español | English Newsletters Archives Los representantes Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) y Jonathan Jackson (D-IL) viajaron a Cuba recientemente, ofreciendo una evaluación inusualmente directa de la política de Estados Unidos. Tras reunirse con cubanos de todo el espectro político y visitar un hospital afectado por el bloqueo petrolero impuesto por Trump, describieron la política estadounidense en términos contundentes, equiparándola a una forma de guerra contra el pueblo cubano. La...
English Newsletters Archives | Boletines en Español Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-IL) traveled to Cuba last week, delivering an unusually blunt assessment of U.S. policy. After meeting with Cubans from across the political spectrum, and visiting a hospital impacted by the Trump-imposed oil blockade, they described U.S. policy in stark terms, equating it to warfare against the Cuban people. Belly of the Beast journalist Liz Oliva Fernández sat down with Jayapal and...
