By Mafa Kwanisai Mafa

The story of Cuba is not simply the story of a small island facing economic difficulties. It is the story of a people who, for more than six decades, have stood in defiance of the most powerful imperialist state in the world.

The Cuban Revolution has endured an extraordinary campaign of economic, financial, diplomatic, and political warfare because it dared to assert a fundamental principle: that a nation has the sovereign right to determine its own political, economic, and social future.

The 2026 Cuban report on the U.S. blockade exposes the continuing reality of this aggression. Between March 1, 2025 and February 28, 2026, the blockade caused an estimated US$8.083 billion in damage to Cuba.

The cumulative damage is placed at US$178.7 billion at current prices, rising to almost US$3.9 trillion when calculated against the rise in the price of gold. The report further estimates that without the blockade, Cuba’s 2025 GDP would have been 10.8 per cent higher.

These figures should not be treated as abstract statistics. Behind every billion dollars lost are hospitals struggling to obtain supplies, families confronting shortages, workers unable to travel to work, students experiencing disruptions, farmers facing difficulties obtaining inputs and communities enduring electricity and water shortages. The blockade is therefore not merely an economic policy. It reaches into the daily lives of ordinary Cuban people.

The objective has never been hidden. The report recalls the infamous 1960 memorandum of U.S. Undersecretary of State Lester Mallory, which advocated measures designed to weaken Cuba’s economic life and create hunger, desperation,n and conditions for the overthrow of the revolutionary government. More than sixty years later, the logic remains essentially the same: create hardship, blame the Cuban system for the consequences, and hope that social suffering will eventually produce political capitulation.

What has changed is the sophistication and intensity of the siege.

In 2026, the blockade has been reinforced through an energy blockade, secondary sanctions, financial persecution, and measures designed to discourage third countries from doing business with Cuba. The report describes how restrictions on fuel supplies have severely affected electricity generation.

By May 2026, Cuba faced a fuel deficit of approximately 2.67 million tons compared with planned availability, while around 1,400 MW of generating capacity remained idle because of lack of fuel. Cuban households experienced an average of more than 20 hours of blackouts.

This is where the political character of the blockade becomes unmistakable. Fuel is not simply fuel in this context. It powers hospitals, water systems, public transport, schools, factories and communications.

Denying a country access to fuel therefore means attacking the foundations of social life. The report notes that the consequences have included shortages of food and medicine, disruptions to water supplies, difficulties in waste collection and severe interruptions to productive activity.

The suffering of the Cuban people must therefore be placed where it belongs: within the context of a deliberate external pressure campaign.

The blockade also exposes the hypocrisy of claims that U.S. sanctions are directed only at the Cuban state. The report documents how foreign companies, banks,s and international businesses have been discouraged from dealing with Cuba because of the threat of U.S. retaliation.

Between March 2025 and February 2026, 34 international banking institutions reportedly suspended or declined operations with Cuba because of concerns about secondary sanctions. This affected Cuba’s ability to purchase food, medicines, fuel, oil,l and industrial inputs even where funds were available.

This is imperialism operating beyond national borders. Washington attempts to impose its domestic political preferences on businesses, banks and governments that do not belong to the United States. The message is effectively: trade with Cuba at your own risk. Such extraterritorial coercion is fundamentally incompatible with genuine international sovereignty.

Yet Cuba has refused to surrender.

That resistance is perhaps the most important lesson of the Cuban experience. A country subjected to invasion attempts, terrorism, economic warfare, diplomatic isolation and decades of sanctions has nevertheless continued to defend its sovereignty. The Cuban people have repeatedly demonstrated that revolutionary commitment cannot be measured by the size of a country’s economy or military power.

Cuba’s resistance is also inseparable from international solidarity. The island has not been abandoned by the peoples of the world. In February 2026, the African Union again condemned the U.S. blockade, marking the seventeenth consecutive time that the continental organisation had adopted such a position. The AU also called for Cuba’s removal from the U.S. unilateral list of alleged state sponsors of terrorism and expressed concern about the extraterritorial effects of the blockade.

This solidarity has deep historical roots. Cuba stood with Africa during the liberation struggles, including through the decisive contribution of Cuban internationalists in Angola. Cuban doctors, teachers and other professionals have continued to serve African peoples long after formal independence.

For Africans, therefore, solidarity with Cuba is not charity. It is reciprocity. It is an expression of the historical bonds forged when Cuba stood on the side of African liberation.

Across Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, Europe and other parts of the world, governments, political parties, trade unions, intellectuals, students and civil society organisations have continued to oppose the blockade. The Cuban report records solidarity initiatives ranging from parliamentary resolutions to humanitarian campaigns, petitions and international solidarity delegations.

The overwhelming international vote at the United Nations General Assembly also demonstrates the profound isolation of the blockade itself. In October 2025, 165 member states voted in favour of ending the U.S. blockade against Cuba.

The contradiction is therefore glaring: Cuba is not isolated because the peoples of the world have rejected it. Rather, Cuba is being subjected to unilateral coercion by a powerful state that refuses to accept the sovereign choices of the Cuban people.

For progressive forces in Africa and the Global South, the Cuban struggle carries a broader lesson. Sovereignty means little if nations can be economically strangled whenever they choose an independent path. Political independence must be accompanied by economic sovereignty, control over national development priorities, and the right to establish relations with whichever international partners a sovereign nation chooses.

Cuba’s struggle is therefore also our struggle.

The Cuban Revolution continues to remind the Global South that development does not have to mean submission, and international cooperation does not have to mean accepting political tutelage from powerful countries. Its example demonstrates the importance of national dignity, social solidarity, internationalism and resistance to imperialist domination.

The blockade may deprive Cuba of fuel, finance and access to markets, but it has failed to blockade the Cuban people’s political consciousness. It has failed to extinguish their revolutionary identity. It has failed to erase the international solidarity that surrounds the island.

The answer to the blockade must therefore be louder solidarity, not silence; internationalism, not indifference; cooperation, not coercion; and sovereignty, not imperial domination.

Cuba must be allowed to live, develop, and determine its own destiny without external interference. The Cuban people have endured the siege for generations. Their message remains clear: a revolution cannot be defeated simply because an empire demands its surrender.

¡Viva Cuba!

¡Viva la Revolución Cubana!

¡Abajo el bloqueo!

¡Cuba sí, bloqueo no!