“Declaring Cuba as an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat’ is an insult to the Cuban people, their dignity and resilience.”
By Cllr Claudia Turbet-Delof
The Cuban people know this means further suffocation of their nation, an assault to their fundamental human rights to food, health and education.
But Trump and Rubio -in their rotten colonial minds -cannot fathom that this affliction is quickly followed by the resilience and resistance of the Cuban people, the one they have learned and developed through decades of the punitive system the US has inflicted on them with impunity.
Yes, there are Cubans who are discontent with the state and how services like the collection of rubbish is being managed at the moment, for example. There are a great majority, however, who understand the reason for the current daily struggle and asphyxiation of their economy: the US embargo.
I have been speaking to many since arriving in Havana, my family, friends, organisations, people in the arts and culture, micro businesses and more.
The message is almost always overwhelmingly similar: ‘Seguimos en combate’.
This is the message of a revolutionary. The message of many women, mothers, fathers, workers, and young people who, despite struggling with imposed daily power outages (lasting from minutes to 6-10 hours long), have full conviction of their dignity and sovereignty and who unequivocally know it thanks to the US sanctions and refer to Trump as a Dictator.
Similar to us around the world, Cubans are up to date with information of all of the human rights abuses by Trump and Marco Rubio’s administration: Mass ICE deportations, support for Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people, and, most recently, the invasion of Venezuela.
Cubans have told me they cannot comprehend how it is possible that so many human rights abuses can take place without the world being able to put a stop to it.
I have lost count of the number of people I’ve spoken to since arriving in Cuba, and I have found it humbling and moving to hear almost all of the people who’ve willingly chatted to me of how much they miss Fidel.
I’ve heard many tell me, almost in poetic form at times, how Fidel Castro never let the elderly without food, the sick without medicine, the young without milk.
The current daily struggle for Cubans is real; some say it’s nothing to do with the embargo, but a great majority understand it is a political choice by the United States to punish the Cuban people.
I have stayed on the island many times in the past two decades and have seen how the embargo has meant many products, stock and infrastructure have not made it to the island due to the barriers caused by these political sanctions.
Cubans, however, have learned to live and thrive despite the inhumane US embargo. As they say here, ‘el Cubano inventa’
This time, however, it is past an economic embargo. This is starvation en masse of an entire sovereign nation.
The current reduced oil, petrol and gas means most people wake up in homes without electricity, food rots with fridges without power, kitchen taps without running water, and a paralysed transport without fuel to transport workers, nurses, doctors and families to their places of work and study.
At present I see children who cannot have breakfast before going to school and elderly like our neighbour here in this Old Habana building who is a diabetic patient, who cannot eat on time, does not have timely access to medicine and is becoming ill by the levels of stress and uncertainty of when she will be able to prepare and cook her next meal.
I know this is a hard read, but it is the reality of what a fascist, colonial leadership like Trump’s and his government inflict on people. And we cannot stay silent.
Nor can we stay quiet to the threats Trump has made to those who show solidarity to the Cuban people.
Declaring Cuba as an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat’ is an insult to the Cuban people, their dignity and resilience.
Yes, Cuba poses a threat not the US or any other nation, but to the inhumane capitalist world that have witnessed that despite the US capitalist criminal decades long asphyxiation of their economy- Cuba has proven that it is possible to not need to submit to the US, live on your knees to the Yankee empire and still become world leaders for medicine, culture, arts, science, sports and many, many more.
I’ll soon be returning to the UK. I’m deeply concerned by what Trump can get away with in his pursuit of capitalist power, and how, shamelessly, fellow US Latinos Congress people, colonised in their minds, find their way to importance and relevance by supporting and becoming complicit to the barbarities committed against the Cuban people and our entire Latinoamérican region.
As an elected member for the London Borough of Hackney in the UK, I see every action we take from local to national and global issues as our best collective powers in the defence of the working class and peoples of the world. We must resist and reject imperialist forces, which are clearly becoming decadent in global value, given that the powerful few remain strong in impunity.
Join the Peace & Justice Project actions to support the Cuban people through official channels for donations, follow the Cuba Solidarity Campaign and remain alert to demand an end to the collective punishment of the Cuban people.
As Fidel said it himself: Muerte al invasor! Viva Cuba Libre!
- Claudia Turbet-Delof is a Hackney Independent Socialist Councillor in Hackney South and Shoreditch. You can follow her on Twitter/X here.
- You can follow Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, Bluesky and TikTok.
- This article was originally published by the Peace and Justice Project on 2 February 2026.
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