Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces attend a rally in support of former President Raul Castro in front of the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, May 22, 2026
ROGER D HARRIS and SARA FLOUNDERS challenge propaganda against the blockaded socialist island
MAY Day is the most important public celebration in Cuba. This year, which marked the 100th anniversary of Fidel Castro’s birth, carried special significance in light of heightened US aggression. Over 5 million Cubans reportedly mobilised island-wide under the slogan of la patria se defiende (the homeland must be defended). The largest demonstration took place in Havana in front of the US embassy.
The symbolism of International Workers’ Day was not lost on the White House. President Trump chose that day, May 1, to impose yet more sanctions on top of the already draconian illegal measures immiserating Cuba. Cuban journalist Norland Rosendo Gonzalez called this latest escalation Trump’s “imperial order to kill the Cuban people without bullets.”
The world’s leading imperial power falsely claims that Cuba poses “threats to United States national security.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio subsequently announced additional measures to “defend” the US homeland from its peaceful neighbour.
Jill Clark-Gollub with the Americas Without Sanctions Campaign explains the underlying reason for Washington’s animosity: “Cuba is sanctioned for the crime of being a good example.” A small, formerly colonised country, Cuba simply claims its sovereign right to determine its own destiny without foreign interference.
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In 1976, Cuban voters ratified a constitutional referendum with a reported 97 per cent approval rate and high voter turnout, which formally defined Cuba as a socialist state. Last year in the United States, the House of Representatives passed a resolution “denouncing the horrors of socialism” by a lopsided bipartisan margin of 285–98.
Capitalism itself, however, has never been subject to a democratic vote of the American people. Perhaps for good reason: recent polls show a growing popularity for socialism, especially among the youth.
Shortly before May Day, President Miguel Diaz-Canel addressed the Cuban nation: “The socialist character of our revolution is not a phrase from the past; it is the shield of the present and the guarantee of the future.” With characteristic Cuban humility, he acknowledged “our own mistakes in this process of social construction” but added that “the main cause of our problems is the genocidal blockade.”
Directly addressing Washington – “gentlemen of manipulation and lies” – Díaz-Canel proclaimed: “Cuba is not a failed state; Cuba is a besieged state.”
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.
STARK REALITIES: Crips Against Cuts Portsmouth protest, in April 2025, as benefits applications are bureaucratic and often unfairly denied / Pic: Tim Sheerman-Chase/CC
DYLAN MURPHY looks at how Labour is breaking its pledge to protect the disabled and vulnerable
… The latest quarterly statistics from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) paint a grim picture. As of November 2025, the sanction rate for Universal Credit (UC) claimants had risen to 5.9 per cent, an increase over the past year.
With 2.1 million claimants in conditionality regimes where sanctions can be applied, this means approximately 123,900 people were undergoing a sanction in November 2025 alone. In October 2025, 63,000 sanction decisions were made, peaking at 65,000 in January 2025.
This is not just a continuation of previous policy; it is an escalation. Before Labour took office on July 5 2024, the previous high for monthly sanctions was 57,276 in January 2024 under the Conservative government. Labour has now well exceeded this figure, reaching 65,000 in January 2025.
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What makes this even more troubling is the severity and duration of these sanctions. According to the latest DWP statistics, there were 26,000 completed sanctions lasting between four and 13 weeks, and 2,800 sanctions lasting over 26 weeks — effectively six months or more.
A six-month sanction means six months without income, six months of choosing between heating and eating, six months of mounting debt and desperation.
This is not modern welfare policy; it is a Victorian attitude towards the “undeserving poor,” dressed up in 21st-century bureaucratic language. It reflects a punitive ideology that views poverty as a moral failing rather than a structural problem.
The human cost is catastrophic. The loss of income from a sanction can trigger a spiral into crisis. People are left unable to pay for rent, food, and heating. For those already struggling with a disability or illness, the stress and anxiety of a sanction can have a devastating impact on their mental and physical health.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves – the very poorest and most vulnerable.
Protesters chant outside New York Supreme Court ahead of former President Donald Trump’s civil business fraud trial, Oct. 2, 2023 in New York. Many argue he needs to be tried again – this time for war crimes. | Brittainy Newman / AP
What a start to the New Year! The shocking invasion of Venezuela by the U.S. and the brutal kidnapping of the head of state and his wife, the [killing] by ICE of a 37-year-old mother of three on the streets of Minneapolis followed the very next day by a Border Patrol agent shooting of a couple in Portland, Ore., and then another ICE shooting in Minneapolis.
2026 started with the Venezuela outrage. The U.S. invasion of Venezuela and abduction of its president and his wife are the actions of a racist rogue state headed by a convicted criminal and should be sanctioned by the United Nations. The Trump regime brazenly and blatantly violated international law and killed dozens in its attack.
The run-up to the incursion were the Trump-ordered boat strikes that have so far killed 115 people. The U.S. military has declined again and again to providence any evidence to justify its slaughter on the seas. The reason being that there is no evidence to condone the wanton murders.
For this reason alone, Trump and the U.S. military should have been charged with war crimes before the appropriate tribunal of the United Nations. But no case was ever brought, as it should have been, by the countries of which these poor souls were citizens. The Trump regime was let off the hook for these dozens of homicides by the international community. The killings were simply a pretext for more imperialist atrocities.
In the wake of these continuing murders, which began in September, the war criminal Trump planned further outrages, culminating so far in the bloody, illegal raid of Jan. 3. This was emblematic of a shameless imperialism that knows no boundaries when it comes to international law. That it was illegal is beyond any sensible doubt. Remember, also, that the issue of whether the killing of two survivors of a Sept. 2 boat strike was a war crime has been dropped from the news feeds.
There was never any evidence to substantiate the barbarous boat strikes, and even if there was some so-called evidence, it still would not justify the summary boat strike executions.
If the same standards were applied to the United States which it holds over other countries, it would suffer the condemnation of the international community followed by appropriate and severe sanctions. Trump and his cohorts would be charged formally as war criminals and have their assets frozen. This would extend to the U.S. military personnel who followed illegal orders.
These sanctions would be directed against not only Trump and his immediate partners in crime, such as Hegseth and Rubio and the military, but also against members of Congress who support his lawless, imperialist terrorist actions and corrupt politicians on both sides of the aisle.
The United States would be treated like the international outlaw that it is. Nations would terminate diplomatic relations with the U.S. and expel its ambassadors. U.S. games and tournaments would be boycotted, including the future World Cup and Summer Olympics. The countries of the world would be issuing travel advisories to their citizens discouraging visits to the U.S. in order to negatively impact its tourism industry.
If the U.N. gave some teeth to its pronouncements, the U.S. would certainly feel some pain for violating the U.N. Charter and international law.
Moving forward, the argument that the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores was a justifiable “law enforcement” procedure is beyond being legally absurd. That simply is not how international law works. One country cannot simply indict a citizen, a national living in another country, and proceed to physically remove said citizen. International law mandates that such a removal must take place by utilization of an extradition treaty for that purpose, if one exists between different sovereign nations.
To invade and abduct is blatantly illegal by any stretch of the imagination, to say the least. This is against the policy of international peace embodied in the U.N. Charter.
But, alas we live in a world where imperialist outlaws like Trump hold sway. We live in a world where there is no effective opposition party in the U.S. to step forward. We live in a world where the power of mass protests, the raw power of the people, must come forward to confront the raw, naked power of brazen imperialism represented by the Trump regime.
This writer, who is also a former public defender, has taken the time to examine and review the indictment against Maduro, his wife Flores, and others of his government. The indictment says precious little about Maduro. It is a kangaroo court document of only 25 pages. It is legally inadequate to substantiate criminal charges against Maduro even if he had been residing in the United States. There are even some who opine that Maduro can beat the charges in a court proceeding. That is if the court is fair.
On the comical side of matters, Trump has just said that the “only thing” restraining his actions is his “own morality.” Trump—a convicted felon, a sexual predator, a purveyor of the foulest racism, a fraudster, a misogynist, and flagrant imperialist—has no morality. Or, should I say, no decent morality.
More comedy, this on the international level, is exhibited by right-wing Venezuelan political figure María Corina Machado, who just gave her Nobel Peace Prize medal to Trump. How much more absurd is the world of the right wing going to get? First, I did not know that a Nobel Peace Prize could be so passed on so routinely to another party. Second, the Nobel Peace Prize has been forever tarnished by it being awarded to Machado in the first place. Third, to even think of giving the Peace Prize to the most bellicose political figure in U.S. history is absurd. If anything, Trump should be awarded the Nobel War Prize, if such existed.
Equally absurd is the response evinced by Trump and his underlings to the murder of 37-year-old mother Renee Nicole Good. They call her a “domestic terrorist” to supposedly justify her killing. Incredibly, the next day after her homicide, Border Patrol agents shot a couple in Portland, alleging that the vehicle they drove was “weaponized.” This was also alleged in the murder of Good, which seems to be the standard pretext in these heinous shootings. Now, there’s been another ICE shooting in Minneapolis, an event sure to spark more protests.
But back to international affairs. Perhaps the global community, as represented by the United Nations, should level severe sanctions against the United States government to bring its politicians to their senses. Absent that the world is headed on an unalterable course of slaughter and carnage, with Trump on a steamroller course to full-blown fascism the likes of which have not been seen the days of Hitler. Also, as crazy and demented as Trump seems, he is but the representative of the political, economic, and military aims of the far-right section of the U.S. ruling class.
What is needed is not just the removal of Trump, which would mean only a leadership change, but a regime change—which means the removal of his whole administration. With the Democratic Party also controlled by billionaires at the national level and seen by many as a lite version of the Republicans these days, it’s easy to conclude the U.S. has no effective opposition party. But there are Democrats—the liberated, unbought, unbossed, and unafraid politicians who run on the Democratic ticket—who can be a force in the people’s movement for liberation from the Trump tyranny.
But it must be noted that sanctions are a two-way street. The Trump regime is not immune to the actions of the international community if the latter has the courage to step forward. The world is beset by an imperialist monster the likes of which has not been seen in decades. The world must rise to the occasion for the sake of humanity.
As with all op-eds published by People’s World, the views reflected here are those of the author.
Albert Bender is a Cherokee activist, historian, political columnist, and freelance reporter. He is currently writing a legal treatise on Native American sovereignty and working on a book on the war crimes committed by the U.S. against the Maya people in the Guatemalan civil war. He is a consulting attorney on Indigenous sovereignty, land restoration, and Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) issues.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
The oil tanker Olina is seized by US forces off the coast of Trinidad on January 9, 2025. (Screenshot from a video posted by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem)
The US has purloined over $300 million of oil in a month while enforcing a blockade, which UN experts say has “seriously undermined the human rights of the Venezuelan people.”
As President Donald Trump geared up for a meeting with fossil fuel executives about plans for them to tap into the “tremendous wealth” of Venezuela’s vast oil supply, the US militaryseized another oil tanker in the Caribbean off the coast of Trinidad on Friday morning.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted unclassified footage from US Southern Command of explosives being deployed and soldiers boarding the vessel Olina on social media.
“As another ‘ghost fleet’ tanker ship suspected of carrying embargoed oil, this vessel had departed Venezuela attempting to evade US forces,” she said. “This is owning the sea.”
The world’s criminals are on notice.
Early this morning, the @USCG executed a boarding and seizure of the Motor Tanker Olina in international waters east of the Caribbean Sea. As another "ghost fleet" tanker ship suspected of carrying embargoed oil, this vessel had departed… pic.twitter.com/vvS3u3nrvl
Olina, which was reportedly carrying around 700,000 barrels of crude, is at least the fifth tanker seized by the military in recent weeks and the third in the last three days after the Trump administration imposed a blockade on sanctioned oil tankers leaving Venezuela in December, a move that has been credited with hastening the country’s economic collapse.
Earlier this week, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the US plans to manage Venezuela’s oil sales and revenues indefinitely following its illegal operation last weekend to topple and abduct President Nicolás Maduro.
According to the ship-tracking database TankerTrackers.com, the US has “seized five tankers and 6.15 million barrels in the span of a month, with the oil valued at over $300 million.”
The US has described Olinaand other ships it has seized as part of a “shadow fleet” that uses deceptive tactics—including flying false flags—to secretively transport oil for sanctioned countries, including Venezuela, Russia, and Iran.
The US has justified its blockade of Venezuela’s oil, as well as the overthrow of Maduro generally, based on the claim that its government is part of an alleged foreign terrorist organization known as the “Cartel de los Soles.”
In late December, a group of United Nations experts condemned the blockade and denounced this justification, stating that the alleged cartel does not exist. The US Department of Justice later acknowledged that the cartel was not an actual organization in its indictment of Maduro this week. Maduro has pleaded not guilty to US narco-terrorism charges.
The group of international experts, which included Ben Saul, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, and Gina Romero, the special rapporteur on freedom of association and assembly, described the blockade as “violating fundamental rules of international law.”
“There is no right to enforce unilateral sanctions through an armed blockade,” the experts said, citing the United Nations Charter, which describes blockades without UN Security Council approval as illegal acts of aggression.
They added that “there are serious concerns that the sanctions are unlawful, disproportionate, and punitive under international law, and that they have seriously undermined the human rights of the Venezuelan people.”
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz speaking at a UNSC session. Photo: Mike Waltz / X
Ahead of the UN vote on the US-imposed blockade on Cuba, the US once again spread lies about the nature and intent of its coercive policy on Cuba
The United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, told multiple lies during his speech in the debate on the resolution demanding an end to the blockade against Cuba.
His speech repeated – almost point by point – the repertoire of already debunked arguments that Washington typically uses to justify its sanctions regime that is condemned year after year by the international community.
Under the guise of “correcting misinformation,” Waltz repeated claims that do not stand up to confrontation with the facts nor with current US legislation itself, and which seek to shift the focus from the material responsibility of the blockade towards political accusations against Cuba.
“The Permanent Representative of the United States is not only lying, substantially straying from the topic, but he is also speaking rudely and, contrary to his president, against the dignity of the assembly and the member states. He is doing so in an uncivilized, crude, and rude manner. That is not acceptable in this democratic forum. Mr. Waltz, this is the United Nations General Assembly. It is not a Signal chat, nor is it the House of Representatives.”
The ten lies of the US Ambassador:
1. “The blockade does not exist.”
The US legislation that sustains the blockade – the Helms-Burton Act (including its Title III), the Torricelli Act, the “180-day rule,” sectoral and financial sanctions lists – exists and is in force. The Cuban Resolution against the blockade does not “invent” these rules: it documents them and shows their practical application. Furthermore, official US documents, such as the reissuance of Presidential Memorandum No. 5 (06/30/2025), confirm the continuity of the “maximum pressure” policy against Cuba.
2. “Cuba’s economic difficulties are the exclusive responsibility of the Havana government.”
The stated goal of US policy is to “strangle the economy” to provoke social unrest; this includes targeting fuel, finances, tourism, and medical cooperation. This siege impacts prices, investments, logistics, and liquidity, and explains a large part of the current economic tensions.
3. “The annual UN resolution is propaganda.”
The vote expresses a broad defense of international law and the UN Charter; the unusual deployment of US diplomatic pressures to alter votes underscores the isolation of this policy and the relevance of the multilateral pronouncement.
4. “The shortage of food and medicine is the fault of the Cuban government.”
There is a chain of bottlenecks caused by the US economic siege: in healthcare, the Basic Drug List (651 items) shows a 69% impact, with 364 drugs (56%) lacking due to payment obstacles, suppliers refusing to operate, and technological prohibitions blocking equipment or supplies with ≥10% US components. This prevents the acquisition or severely increases the cost of advanced medicines and critical devices (for example, percutaneous aortic valve prostheses or dialysis equipment), with a direct impact on care and health indicators.
Regarding food, the lack of financing and banking refusals forced the halt of imports of approximately 337,000 tons of corn and ~120,300 tons of soybeans (animal feed), leading to failures in the production of eggs for the Basic Food Basket. Even “authorized” purchases in the US are made under non-standard conditions: specific licenses, cash payment in advance (without credit), transport only on US ships and on one-way trips, which increases freight costs and delays deliveries. The lack of goods is due to lack of financing, limited access to credit, increased prices, high freight costs, and delays in arrivals, direct consequences of the blockade.
5. “The blockade allows for free export.”
There is no commercial “freedom”: the US legal framework establishes a policy of denial for exports/re-exports to Cuba (EAR) and prohibits subsidiaries of US companies in third countries from trading with Cuba; furthermore, the “180-day rule” is in effect, which discourages shipping companies from calling at Cuban ports, and permitted agricultural sales require cash payment in advance, without US financing. All this restricts and makes any operation more expensive, both for exporting and importing.
Added to this is extraterritorial financial persecution: fines and threats to banks and suppliers, refusals to open or maintain accounts, and blocked operations that cut off payment and collection flows. Cuba’s own report includes recent cases (OFAC fine to EFG; refusal to open an account for the EXPO Osaka; closures of embassy accounts) and quantifies widespread impacts on contracts, letters of credit, and transfers.
That is to say, far from “exporting freely,” Cuba trades under veto, licenses, and regulatory fear; in fact, the document lists measures that Washington could authorize – biomedicine, mining, tourism, easing of investment licenses, raising the 10% US component threshold, authorizing banking correspondents, removing Cuba from the SSOT list, and suspending Title III – and which it currently obstructs.
6. “Cuba has full freedom to trade with other countries.”
The US secondary (extraterritorial) measures deter and punish third parties (banks, shipping companies, insurers), increasing the costs and risks of operating with Cuba, which restricts real freedom of trade.
7. “The Cuban government traffics its medical personnel.”
Cuba maintains voluntary and widely recognized international cooperation; the US persecution seeks to cut off these revenues and deprive vulnerable populations of essential services, ignoring UN and PAHO standards.
8. “The Cuban government benefits from mercenarism.”
Cuba applies “zero tolerance” to mercenarism and has criminally prosecuted recruiters; it does not support or condone the participation of its nationals in external conflicts.
9. “Cuba destabilizes the hemisphere.”
What is destabilizing is the US military deployment and diplomatic blackmail in the Caribbean and the region; Cuba and CELAC uphold the principle of a “Zone of Peace”.
10. “Cuba contributes to the Russian ‘war machine’.”
Cuba does not participate in the war in Ukraine nor send troops; it has dismantled recruitment networks and sanctions mercenarism.
Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces attend a rally in support of former President Raul Castro in front of the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, May 22, 2026
