July 16, 2025 — Belly of the Beast

Cuba’s girls’ softball team missed the Caribbean qualifier to the Little League World Series after the coaches and staff were denied U.S. visas.

The girls, ages 9 to 10, who came from La Palma, Pinar del Río, were supposed to play in Puerto Rico starting Monday. They never made their flight. While they received visas, no adult in the delegation did.

Cuba’s Baseball and Softball Federation called the decision unfair and discriminatory, adding that it is “cruel to play with the expectations of kids who have worked very hard.”

This is just the latest indication that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has imposed a de facto travel ban on Cuban sports.

According to Gisleidy Sosa, director of international relations at Cuba’s National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation, no Cuban athlete this year has been granted a visa at the U.S. Embassy in Havana.

Cuba’s national women’s volleyball and men’s basketball teams also recently missed competitions in Puerto Rico due to visa denials, while a dozen athletes were barred from attending the World Masters Athletics Indoor Championship in Florida.

The denials are not technically a result of Trump’s partial travel ban on Cuban nationals, which exempts athletes traveling to the U.S. for competitions “in major sporting events.” But the final decision for visa approvals ultimately depends on Rubio’s State Department.

Some of the biggest international competitions require Cuban teams to obtain U.S. visas since world and Olympic qualifiers often take place in the United States or Puerto Rico.

The 2028 Olympic Games will be held in Los Angeles, where any Cuban athlete who manages to qualify could be subject to Rubio’s whims – assuming he is still in the job.

Watch our report with reactions to visa denials from Cuba’s national men’s basketball team HERE.

Havana, July 16 (Prensa Latina) Cuba’s National Assembly of People’s Power (parliament) approved a declaration condemning the U.S. government’s policy of hostility toward the island, which continues to intensify today.

During the fifth session of the legislative body, headed by the historic leader of the Revolution, Army General Raúl Castro, and President Miguel Díaz-Canel, the deputies denounced the U.S. presidential memorandum of June 30, 2025, which intensifies the blockade.

They also pointed out the White House’s responsibility for the escalation of the economic, commercial, and financial war, as a means of achieving the imperialist and colonialist goal of seizing Cuba.

It reiterates that the United States aggression against Cuba violates international law and multiple UN resolutions. This policy also violates the right to self-determination, by virtue of which we Cubans have sovereignly established our national project, the declaration emphasizes.

The text states that the “current shortcomings and major challenges facing the Cuban economy in its recovery, growth, and development are the result of the extreme reinforcement of the blockade, which, especially since 2017, has had a qualitatively more damaging effect.”

He points out that the shortages of food, medicine, fuel, and electricity that the Cuban people are suffering today would not exist if this genocidal economic war had not been prolonged and intensified.

The Parliament’s statement describes the consequences of the blockade, which, among other things, prohibits Americans from traveling to Cuba, restricts fuel supplies, hinders the sending of remittances, and pressures third-country governments to receive Cuban medical services.

At the same time, Washington intimidates commercial and financial entities around the world to prevent their relations with Cuba, and its measures encourage lawsuits in U.S. courts against investors on the island, the note states.

It also denounces the unjust and arbitrary inclusion of Cuba on the list of states supposedly sponsoring terrorism, with its disastrous consequences for the Cuban economy, which are shamelessly presented as actions for the good of the Cuban people.

The island’s legislature reaffirmed to legislators and friends from all over the world that “the political will of this people will not be broken nor will it be subjected to the hegemonic dictates of the United States government.”

Cuba is aware of “the extraordinary challenges at hand,” the document asserts, emphasizing that, despite the siege, Cubans will stand united against “these and other aggressive maneuvers by the U.S. government and the corrupt anti-Cuban clique that promotes them, without ever renouncing the commitment to building a society where dignity, justice, and well-being are always the heritage of all.”

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July 16, 2025 — Belly of the Beast

As we’ve reported, since taking his post as U.S. Chargé d’Affaires in Havana, Mike Hammer has fashioned himself a social media influencer, posting selfie-style videos of himself touring the island and meeting with Cubans.

Hammer’s most recent offering mocks the high number of Russians staying at the Varadero beach resort. But he doesn’t mention how Russian tourism to Cuba has become increasingly noticeable in large part because his government’s policies have stifled tourism from the U.S. and Europe. Belly of the Beast journalist Yohan Rodríguez breaks it down:

July 14 (Cuba Si) In yet another display of his obsession with subverting Cuba’s constitutional order, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed, as he claimed with honor, his mercenaries on the island to reaffirm his “support” for the Cuba they seek to impose on the nation.

This figure shared on X the same hashtags that served as a rallying cry for those who incited violence during the COVID-19 pandemic and continued to call for chaos while Cuba fought to save lives, a time when even oxygen was denied to the island by those who now pretend to care deeply about the Cuban people and their future.

Such behavior was condemned on X by Cuban Foreign Minister and Politburo member Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, who stated that the Secretary of State “urges his paid agents” in Cuba “to subvert the constitutional order and carry out the orders of those who inflict suffering on the Cuban people. While he uses federal funds to enrich his corrupt operatives, millions of U.S. citizens are denied access to healthcare,” he argued.

Former Senator Rubio has a long history of attacks and aggression against the land where his parents were born. He is largely responsible for Donald Trump’s decision, on his first day in the White House, to reverse the limited steps taken by his predecessor, Joe Biden, and reinstate Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Days later, driven by his delusional desire to destroy the Cuban Revolution and reinstate a hardline policy toward the island, Rubio reactivated the so-called Restricted List on January 31, prohibiting transactions with companies linked to the Revolutionary Armed Forces’ business group.

To make matters worse, he also included the remittance processing company Orbit S.A. on that list, cutting off a vital channel through which Cuban emigrants sent money to their families on the island.

In response to these arbitrary measures, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez wrote on X that he was not surprised by “the criminal measures announced to threaten Cuba, a country that has not a single active measure against the U.S.” He questioned, “How can anyone claim to care about the well-being of Cubans while imposing new suffocating measures?”

It is worth recalling that in 2017 and beyond, the current Secretary of State was the main instigator in Congress regarding the alleged health incidents reported by U.S. diplomats in Havana. Rubio championed the narrative of what Washington and the U.S. press called “sonic attacks,” despite persistent skepticism among lawmakers from both parties regarding the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and State Department’s claims.

As further proof of the hostile U.S. policy toward Cuba, Rubio has recently sought to discredit Cuba’s international medical missions, as seen during his Caribbean tour, where he pushed to restrict visas for officials associated with these missions, baselessly accusing them of “human trafficking.”

Cuban Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío explained that the recently announced U.S. memorandum against Cuba bears the influence of Rubio and anti-Cuban factions.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translated Staff

Iran is optimistic about the Cuban people’s determination to resist the US imperialist measures.

July 13 (teleSUR) This Sunday, July 13, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran issued a strong condemnation of the United States economic and commercial blockade against Cuba , which it describes as “criminal” and in violation of international law.

“Once again, America’s addiction to coercion and intimidation has targeted a sovereign nation determined to exercise its right to self-determination and preserve its independence and dignity ,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei shared in a post on X, in a message that reinforces the Islamic Revolution’s historic stance against US sanctions on sovereign nations, something the Persian people are suffering from firsthand.

The diplomat criticized the United States for issuing a new set of sanctions against the Cuban people in the midst of a crisis caused precisely by the systematic application of economic persecution measures such as those recently announced.

The Iranian message is categorical: ” Iran strongly condemns these inhumane measures that contravene the fundamental principles of international law and negatively affect the fundamental human rights of the Cuban people.”

In turn, the Persian nation is optimistic about the values of Cubans , such as their resistance and determination in the face of the northern empire: “Such unilateral and unjust coercive measures would never affect the determination of the Cuban people, nor of their leaders, to resist the authoritarian whims of the United States.”

After decades of illegal sanctions imposed by successive U.S. administrations on Iran, his government stands in solidarity with the Cuban people and leadership , “and wishes them continued strength and resilience,” the foreign minister said in his forceful statement.

On Friday, July 11, the U.S. State Department announced visa restrictions against Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez , as well as against the Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, Army Corps General Álvaro López Miera, and the Minister of the Interior, Major General Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas; measures that extend to the officials’ immediate family members.

To justify its unilateral measures, the US government resorted to alleged human rights violations  by the Cuban state, which are part of a smear campaign they are fueling alongside right-wing media outlets around the world.

In addition, the Trump administration announced an update to the Cuban Restricted Properties and Prohibited Accommodations in Cuba lists , which include  11 more government-linked properties  , including the new “Torre K” hotel, a measure aimed at preventing the collection of hard currency that the Cuban people need.