By Mafa Kwanisai Mafa
The events of 10 December 2025 mark a dangerous and revealing escalation in the long-running economic warfare waged against the Republic of Cuba.
On that day, United States military forces boarded and seized an oil tanker sailing in international waters in the Caribbean Sea, off the Venezuelan coast. This was not a routine security operation, nor was it a lawful act carried out under any recognised international mandate.
It was an act of piracy and maritime terrorism, a brazen display of imperial power exercised in open contempt of international law and collective security norms.
The seizure constitutes a serious violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation.
These conventions were crafted precisely to prevent such arbitrary uses of force on the high seas, where freedom of is a foundational principle of international relations.
By boarding a civilian oil tanker in international waters, the United States government assumed responsibility for an action that undermines the very legal architecture it claims to defend.
The implications go far beyond Cuba or Venezuela; this was an attack on the rules-based system governing maritime trade, a system upon which the global economy depends.
This act cannot be understood in isolation. It is part of a broader escalation by the United States aimed at obstructing Venezuela’s legitimate right to freely use and trade its natural resources with other sovereign nations, including the supply of hydrocarbons to Cuba.
Venezuela, like any independent state, has the right to sell its oil and determine its trading partners without external coercion. Cuba, likewise, has the sovereign right to secure energy supplies essential for its development and the well-being of its people.
The use of military force to interfere with these lawful exchanges reveals the true character of Washington’s policy: not one of law enforcement or regional stability, but one of domination and economic strangulation.
History offers important context. During the first mandate of Donald Trump, the United States intensified its campaign against Venezuela’s oil sector, imposing unilateral sanctions and targeting shipping companies, insurers and vessels involved in transporting fuel.
Tankers carrying oil to Cuba were subjected to harassment, blacklisting and threats, creating artificial shortages and economic stress. These measures were explicitly designed to punish both Venezuela and Cuba for refusing to submit to US political dictates.
What is deeply alarming today is that this policy has not only persisted but has now been militarised. The deployment of armed forces to enforce economic sanctions represents a qualitative shift from financial coercion to direct force.
Such actions expose the hollowness of claims that US sanctions are merely “targeted” or “legal. In reality, they are instruments of collective punishment.
The strengthening of economic warfare against Cuba has direct and painful consequences for ordinary people. Energy shortages affect hospitals, schools, public transport, food production and water supply systems.
When fuel deliveries are disrupted, it is not abstract state structures that suffer, but families, workers, children and the elderly. Cuba’s national power system, already under strain due to decades of blockade and restricted access to technology and finance, is further weakened by these hostile actions.
The everyday life of the Cuban people becomes more difficult, not because of natural disaster or mismanagement, but because of deliberate external aggression.
The use of military force to enforce economic pressure also reveals the ideological foundations of US policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean.
What we are witnessing is the modern application of Trump’s corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, an updated assertion that the region is Washington’s exclusive sphere of influence.
Under this logic, any attempt by Latin American or Caribbean nations to pursue independent development paths, forge South-South cooperation, or resist US dominance is treated as a provocation to be crushed.
The boarding of an oil tanker in Caribbean waters is a chilling reminder that, for the United States, sovereignty in “Our America” remains conditional and revocable.
This doctrine stands in direct violation of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, adopted unanimously by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
That historic declaration commits the region to resolving disputes peacefully, rejecting the use or threat of force, and respecting the sovereignty of all states.
By militarising economic sanctions and projecting force into Caribbean waters, the United States has shown utter disregard for this collective commitment. The silence or equivocation of some governments in the face of such aggression only emboldens further violations.
International law is not a menu from which powerful states can selectively choose what suits them. When a superpower openly violates maritime law, it sets a precedent that endangers all nations, especially smaller and developing ones that rely on legal norms for protection.
If tankers can be boarded at will, if trade routes can be militarised to enforce unilateral sanctions, then no country is safe from similar treatment.
Today it is Cuba and Venezuela; tomorrow it could be any nation that dares to assert its independence.
The moral dimension of this aggression cannot be ignored. For more than six decades, Cuba has endured an economic blockade that the overwhelming majority of the world’s countries have condemned year after year at the United Nations General Assembly.
This blockade has been described by international bodies and human rights organisations as a violation of human rights due to its devastating humanitarian impact.
The recent escalation, involving direct military interference with fuel supplies, deepens this injustice. It is economic warfare by any honest definition, designed to break the will of a people through deprivation.
Yet history also teaches that Cuba’s resistance is rooted in a profound sense of dignity and sovereignty. Despite relentless pressure, the Cuban people have defended their right to self-determination, social justice and international solidarity.
The attempt to impose “maximum pressure” has repeatedly failed to achieve its stated political objectives, instead isolating the United States diplomatically and exposing the cruelty of its policy.
The latest act of maritime aggression will likely have the same result: increased global awareness of the lengths to which Washington is willing to go to maintain its dominance.
What is urgently required now is universal condemnation of this act of piracy and maritime terrorism. Silence is complicity. Governments, international organisations, legal scholars and civil society must speak out in defence of international law and regional peace.
The Caribbean Sea should not become a theatre of military intimidation, nor should economic sanctions be enforced at gunpoint. Upholding the Zone of Peace declaration is not merely a regional obligation; it is a contribution to global stability.
The strengthening of economic warfare against Cuba is not a sign of strength but of desperation. It reflects the inability of the United States to accept a multipolar world in which nations choose cooperation over subordination.
By resorting to force and coercion, Washington undermines its own credibility and the very principles it claims to champion. The seizure of an oil tanker in international waters is a stark reminder that imperial habits die hard, but it is also a call to action for those who believe in sovereignty, peace and justice.
In defending Cuba’s right to trade freely and secure its energy needs, the international community is defending something larger: the principle that no nation, however powerful, has the right to impose its will through economic strangulation and military intimidation.
The Caribbean and Latin America have declared themselves a Zone of Peace. That declaration must be defended not in words alone, but through collective resistance to acts that threaten peace, law and human dignity.
