By Rosemari Mealy JD, PhD, Author, Fidel and Malcolm X-Memories of a Meeting
Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in January 1959, the United States government has sought, through a wide range of covert and overt means, to overthrow the Cuban government. These efforts have included thousands of acts of sabotage and terrorism organized and financed by the CIA and other anti-Cuban operatives.
The most infamous of these covert operations was the disastrous Bay of Pigs (Playa Girón) invasion of 1961. The United States has never reconciled itself to that colossal military defeat, when its anti-Cuban mercenaries were killed, captured, or fled in disarray through the swamps of Playa Girón. For Cuba, still in the earliest stages of its revolution, Playa Girón represented a decisive victory against U.S. empire—achieved despite the United States’s superior weaponry, artillery, and air support.
Other covert operations included more than six hundred documented attempts to assassinate Cuba’s most beloved leader, the late President Fidel Castro—one of the most respected political figures of the twentieth century.
Most infamously and un-lawfully, for more than sixty years, the United States has attempted to isolate Cuba and starve its people into rebellion through an economic blockade. This policy reflects a fundamental tenet of empire: a profound disregard for the right to life and self-determination of entire populations.
On January 29, 2026, Donald Trump reaffirmed this legacy in yet another executive order, released under the title Fact Sheet: Threats to the United States by the Government of Cuba. In this latest assault on Cu-ban sovereignty, Trump announced his intention to “put America first” by declaring a national emergency and imposing punitive tariffs on countries that sell or other-wise provide oil to Cuba. The order authorizes additional tariffs on imports from any country that directly or indirectly supplies oil to Cuba—an act of collective punishment dressed up as national security policy.
With the stroke of a pen, Trump once again demonstrated a callous disregard for human life—both abroad and at home. In the United States, civil liberties are increasingly under assault. Armed National Guard units patrol city streets, arrests are carried out with impunity, and communities live under a de facto state of emergency. Under the pretext of “immigration enforcement,” federal agents conduct warrantless home entries, terrorizing families and neighborhoods. In Minnesota, amid a heavily militarized environment involving National Guard and ICE operations, U.S. citizens have been killed during enforcement actions in recent weeks.
Across the country, people are taking to the streets in mass protests against the racist, nativist, right-wing project that Trump founded, “Make America Great Again” (MAGA). This ideology is evident in both domestic repression and foreign policy aggression, and is built on fear, coercion, and deliberate falsehoods.
Trump’s so-called fact sheet accuses Cuba of aligning with hostile nations, hosting foreign intelligence operations, and providing safe haven to terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas. These allegations are presented without evidence and echo decades-old propaganda used to justify the continued blockade and political isolation of Cuba.
This document must be condemned and exposed for what it truly is: another declaration of economic warfare and an extension of a long-standing policy aimed at the economic genocide of the Cuban people. The intent behind this policy was made explicit as early as April 6, 1960, in the infamous Mallory Memorandum, which called for denying Cuba money and supplies in order to “bring about hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government.”
Trump’s current threats against Cuba—like those of many of his predecessors—have nothing to do with democracy, human rights, or security. They are about punishment, coercion, and imperial control. We categorically denounce this inhumane policy, reject the lies used to justify it, and call for an immediate end to the blockade and for Cuba’s removal from the State Sponsors of Terrorism List.
Sixty-five years ago, at Playa Girón, the United States failed in its attempt to return Cuba to the grip of imperial domination and neo-colonial rule. Today, sixty-five years later, a declining U.S. capitalist system—now led by an authoritarian figure with deeply negative approval ratings—again claims the imperial right to trample the sovereignty of a small nation.
Cuba’s own record tells a different story. Despite more than six decades of economic warfare, the country has made significant advances in science and technology, saved lives through international medical missions, eradicated illiteracy, built a highly educated society, promoted gender equality, and implemented state-supported, anti-racism initiatives. Cuba stands as a notable example of social progress in a hostile global context.
For people in the United States and around the world, this latest Trump executive order must be met with organized resistance and unequivocal condemnation. Trump’s fact sheet is, in reality, a lie sheet—one that must be countered with the true history of the Cuban Revolution, its internationalism, and its enduring commitment to human dignity and collective survival.
