Brazilian table tennis World Cup champion Hugo Calderano was barred from competing in a major tournament in Las Vegas last week when the U.S. denied him a visa. The reason? He competed in Cuba two years ago.
“I followed the same protocol as all my previous trips to the United States using my Portuguese passport. When I was informed of the situation, I mobilized my entire team to obtain an emergency visa, but unfortunately, there was not enough time,” Calderano said in a statement. “It is frustrating to be left out of one of the most important competitions of the season for reasons beyond my control.”
Calderano, who is the highest ranked non-Chinese player in the world, holds dual citizenship from Portugal. As a Portuguese citizen, he is eligible to travel to the U.S. without a visa by filling out a simple online form via the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA).
But the U.S. government automatically revokes this visa waiver for anyone who has visited Cuba because the State Department lists the nation as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” (SSOT).
Citizens from 42 countries can get a visa waiver via ESTA. But if they’ve visited Cuba, they must apply for a visa at a U.S. embassy in order to visit the United States, a process that can take months.
There is no evidence that Cuba sponsors terrorism. The listing is not formally a sanction. However, inclusion on the list has cut off the island from international trade, credit, banking and investment – making SSOT a centerpiece of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy to decimate the Cuban economy.
The terror list largely explains the decrease of much-needed European tourism, as Europeans think twice before coming to Cuba to avoid losing their U.S. travel perks.
Watch our video and hear from European travelers on the U.S. measure HERE.
The American administration has made a significant step in restricting American tourism to Cuba while escalating a hitherto tense relationship between both nations. In response to a new policy shift by the U.S., visitors to Cuba are now subject to a massive fine of $250,000 for violating its prohibitions on tourism-related activities. These new restrictions form part of a bigger scheme aimed at tightening economic and political pressure on the Cuban government, especially after its reclassification as a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. in 2021.
The U.S. travel ban to Cuba has been on for decades, but new developments have made penalties and rules of travel more complex. One key part of renewed enforcement is a Presidential Proclamation, which came into effect in June 2025. It totally halts tourist visas, including B‑1/B‑2 visas for travel and J‑1 exchange visitor visas, from being issued to Cuban nationals and to all individuals traveling for other than a bona fide intent. It further limits American citizens from engaging in any tourist activity in Cuba without a special license from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
This policy shift follows a string of actions by the U.S. government, which has insisted on having its embargo of Cuba in place since the early 1960s. These new prohibitions are aimed at efforts at financial transactions that would accrue a benefit to Cuban state entities, including its military and intelligence apparatus.
Political and Security Reasons for the Prohibition
The U.S. government’s tourist ban is largely based on national security concerns. In 2021, Cuba was officially listed by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terror based on its refusal to cooperate on law enforcement issues, its funding of foreign terrorist organizations, and its refusal to accept deportees. These actions have been responsible for fanning hostilities between both nations and thus tourist travel restrictions.
The U.S. State Department also refers to a lack of response on behalf of the Cuban government to address visa overstays and other immigration issues as among the leading motivations for ongoing travel restrictions. For U.S. citizens, the new travel warning now warns that Cuba is a country where its citizens may encounter wrongful imprisonment, electricity outages, and unreliable embassy assistance. For these and other reasons, the State Department now urges visitors to “reconsider travel” to Cuba and offers a Level 2 travel advisory.
Economic and Social Impacts of Prohibition
The American travel ban has significant effects, not only on American travelers but also on Cuban citizens, their families, and businesses. Cuba was always a sophisticated destination for American travelers, with its rich culture, beautiful scenery, and thriving musical life. In any case, the embargo has had a lasting effect on Cuba’s economy, as tourism is a high-earning activity for Cuba.
Particularly, remittances sent by Cuban Americans to their families in Cuba are currently more closely tracked. Cubans are also frustrated by greater restrictions, which make it difficult for them to access money from their American families and add additional pressure on the economy. In addition, private ventures in Cuba—specifically belonging to businessmen wishing to access new demand for personal services directly—are currently exposed to new financial difficulties.
To American experts, journalists, and researchers previously allowed to travel to Cuba on professional and academic merits, new restrictions pose a new challenge. Even as these industries could still travel on a special license, navigating through the system now becomes difficult as visas build up and bureaucracy slows momentum.
Criminal and Monetary Penalties
The U.S. government has also increased sanctions for violating the tourism embargo, and now fines can reach $250,000. It’s tighter than ever on enforcement of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations (CACR) by the U.S. Treasury Department. These prohibit any monetary transactions related to tourism in Cuba (e.g., funds for lodging, transportation, or other tourist costs) except by a traveler with an OFAC license.
American Airlines and others have reiterated that tourist travel to Cuba remains illegal, and only a limited subset of licensed purposes—official government, journalism, and humanitarian—is allowed. Even for these purposes, American visitors are required to obey stringent restrictions, such as the use of cash, as no U.S. credit cards are acceptable in Cuba. Even financial transactions are required to be carried out through licensed intermediaries such as CADECA, licensed exchange desks in Cuba.
What This Means for Americans Thinking About a Trip
For American citizens who would like to visit Cuba legally, planning will have to grow more sophisticated as these rules grow increasingly complex. Those who desire to travel on family visits, professional research, journalism, or religious work all require obtaining the required licenses from OFAC. Travel restrictions to Cuba have become stricter than ever before, and offenders face heavy penalties or criminal prosecution.
The families aiming to reunite with their relatives in Cuba face delays in their applications for visas, thus increasingly finding it hard to maintain major personal contacts. Further tightening of restrictions will also delay the prospect of a thawing of relations between the two countries, which had temporarily relaxed in the mid-2010s.
The Cost of U.S. Policy
This widening distance between Cuba and the U.S. continues to affect real people—families split asunder, students prevented from continuing studies, and businessmen and women with additional economic burdens. These policies have, for many, ceased to be politics—they are a day-to-day hurdle to maintain relations, to chase a goal of academic excellence, or market local Cuban products. Behind policies are the faces of people whose lives get lost in geopolitics’ crossfire.
For others still hoping to indulge in Cuba’s rich culture or visit loved ones, these visits become more difficult with restrictions and cause people to reconsider their plans and face new entry barriers. On the heels of developments, continued restriction of tourism becomes a testament to tensions between both countries—a sore reminder of how foreign relations can sometimes become a thorny and problematic tangle of conflicting loyalties and demands. Finally, this latest move by the U.S. administration marks a new page in the complex and stormy U.S.-Cuba relationship, having significant impacts on both sides of the Straits of Florida.
(Source: U.S. State Department, White House, U.S. Treasury Department, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Commerce)
Havana, July 8 (Prensa Latina) The Portugal-Cuba Friendship Association (AAPC) rejects the recent actions of the United States government to intensify the economic, commercial, and financial blockade against the Caribbean nation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated today.
A publication from the Cuban Foreign Ministry confirms that the AAPC considers the memorandum signed by President Donald Trump “a revised version” of a similar text signed in June 2017.
Thus, the Association denounces, the Trump administration “prolongs aggressive policies that seek to increase pressure on Cuba and constitutes an attempt to further oppress the Cuban economy and interfere in the country’s internal affairs.”
It also accuses the US of maintaining the siege for more than six decades and implementing additional measures that cause “serious damage” to the Caribbean island, expressed in the “shortage of essential goods” and difficulties in production and economic recovery.
Among the measures imposed, he notes, “mention should be made of the ban on transactions between U.S. citizens and Cubans, the prohibition on companies and governments in other countries doing business with Cuba, and sanctions on companies in the financial and energy sectors, among others.”
He also emphasizes that the illegality of these actions has been “denounced by legal experts and international organizations” and rejected in “successive votes in the UN General Assembly, which, since 1992 and almost unanimously, has called for an end to the blockade.”
Cuba’s inclusion on the list of state sponsors of terrorism reveals “the hypocrisy of the United States, which for decades has destabilized and interfered in the internal affairs of other states that, like Cuba, are governed by relations of friendship, cooperation, and respect,” he notes.
“The AAPC vehemently denounces and rejects the coercive actions of U.S. policy toward Cuba,” it proclaims.
He added that the “Solidarity Campaign For Cuba! End the Blockade!”, already signed by dozens of organizations, has grown and given voice to the resistance of the heroic Cuban people, calling for the strengthening of the Portuguese people’s solidarity with Cuba.
Why solidarity? Because Cuba has been facing a criminal, illegal, and immoral blockade for more than six decades! Because Cuba has the right to defend its sovereignty and decide its own path, without external interference or aggression, declares the Portugal-Cuba Friendship Association.
by Stacy M. Brown July 8, 2025 — The Washington Informer
Cuba’s Deputy Director of U.S. Affairs Johana Tablada offered a sobering but impassioned critique of current U.S. policy toward Cuba, where she called on Americans — especially African Americans — to pay closer attention to the consequences of decades-long sanctions and misinformation.
In an interview at Black Press USA’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., Tablada described the current relationship between the U.S. and Cuba as being “at a low point,” marked by “maximum aggression” from the U.S. government.
“It is difficult to describe this as anything but open hostility,” she told Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., president and CEO of National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), the trade association representing more than 200 African American newspapers and media companies. “This year alone, since Jan. 20, the U.S. has imposed more than a dozen unilateral coercive measures against Cuba.”
Recently, the Trump administration signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) regarding Cuba, supporting an “economic embargo” on Cuba and enforcing “the statutory ban on U.S. tourism to Cuba,” and reversing Cuban-American relations that had been advanced by his predecessor.
“This NSPM restores and strengthens the robust Cuba policy from the president’s first term, reversing the Biden administration’s revocation that eased pressure on the Cuban regime,” according to a June 30 White House fact sheet on the NSPM.
The sanctions — from his inauguration in January to the late-June NSMP — Tablada noted, go far beyond restricting trade; they include denying visas to Cuban athletes and scientists, interfering with cultural exchanges, and cutting remittances through Western Union.
“The Cuban Olympic Committee’s president wasn’t granted a visa to attend events in the U.S.,” she said. “And this during a cycle leading up to the Olympics in Los Angeles.”
Tablada specifically pointed to the Trump administration’s reinstatement of Cuba on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism as fraudulent and damaging.
“It’s a designation based on lies,” she said. “And when a country is placed on that list, it becomes nearly impossible to receive oil, medical supplies, or even financial transfers due to global banking fears.”
She drew a sharp contrast between the current state of U.S.-Cuba policy and the optimism that accompanied President Barack Obama’s historic visit to Havana in 2016.
“We had a breakthrough,” she declared. “We were talking and engaging respectfully—even when we disagreed. That’s no longer happening.”
Cuban Connections With Africa, African American Community
Throughout the 40-minute interview, Tablada spoke fondly of the long-standing solidarity between Cuba and the African American community.
She invoked the legacy of Malcolm X, the symbolism of his 1960 meeting with Fidel Castro in Harlem, and Cuba’s military support for liberation movements in Angola and South Africa.
“Cuba is the only country in Latin America that went back to Africa and fought and died to end apartheid,” she said. “That bond with the African diaspora is deep and permanent.”
She noted that Cuban identity and culture are inextricably linked to Africa.
“Our music, our food, our sense of honor—it all comes from Mother Africa. And we have a responsibility to protect that legacy,” she remarked.
‘Provoked Suffering and Hardship‘
Tablada called the decades-long U.S. embargo — enforced through a patchwork of laws, including the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act, the Helms-Burton Act, and the Torricelli Act — an unprecedented and inhumane measure.
“There is no other country in the world that faces this level of comprehensive economic warfare,” she said. “It’s not just unfair; it’s provoked suffering and hardship.”
She added that Cuba has never retaliated with sanctions or actions against the United States, highlighting the one-sided nature of the policy.
The diplomat also pushed back on U.S. accusations of forced labor in Cuba’s international medical missions.
“We operate in 56 countries with agreements supported by the United Nations,” she said. “Yes, those missions generate income to fund our free health care system—but calling that human trafficking is a grotesque lie. The U.S. is spending millions to manufacture pretexts for aggression.”
Tablada warned that U.S. policies are even affecting tourism and access to energy.
“Today, the U.S. actively blocks vessels from delivering oil to Cuba. It pressures other countries to deny Cuba tourism access,” she asserted. “And then it blames us for the resulting blackouts and scarcities. This is not diplomacy. This is punishment.”
Tablada Offers Call to Action
Despite the challenges, Tablada expressed hope in the people of the United States.
“I believe that if Americans—especially African Americans—knew the full truth, they would reject these policies,” she said. “Because they have always stood on the side of justice, from civil rights to solidarity with global liberation movements.”
She extended an invitation for the Black Press of America to work with Cuban journalists to strengthen the exchange of truth.
“Let’s put Cuba back on the radar,” she said. “The people of both countries want peace, not conflict.”
While Tablada admitted to a lot of challenges, she said she still has hope based on two factors: “Our youth and the truth.”
“When people talk to each other honestly, Tablada continued, “good things happen.”
As Cuba’s deputy director of U.S. Affairs, Tablada said she would welcome a conversation with President Trump himself.
“Let’s talk. Cuba is not an enemy of the United States,” she said. “Let’s stop the lies and sit down. Every time we’ve done that, progress followed.”
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, host of the 17th BRICS Summit, warmly greeted his Cuban counterpart Miguel Díaz-Canel today with an embrace and a firm handshake that spoke volumes beyond words.
The encounter took place during the afternoon session of the forum’s opening day, which is being held for the first time in South America with the participation not only of the bloc’s five founding members but also of a growing constellation of invited nations expanding the reach of the Global South.
Among them is Cuba, widely recognized for its enduring resilience under what is considered the longest economic blockade in modern history.
For many attending the summit at Rio de Janeiro’s Museum of Modern Art, Lula’s greeting was more than a simple gesture. It was seen as a political affirmation, evoking the years when Lula shared platforms with the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, whether in Porto Alegre or at meetings of the São Paulo Forum.
As the founder of Brazil’s ruling Workers’ Party, Lula has long viewed Cuba not only as a symbol of steadfastness but also as an essential voice for the Caribbean and Latin America in multilateral arenas. Without uttering a word, Lula’s greeting suggested that Cuba, a nation subjected to an unjust blockade for more than six decades, stands firm and speaks on behalf of many.
Analysts regard Cuba’s invitation to the summit as an act of diplomatic sovereignty, as well as a reaffirmation of regional integration.
Despite internal challenges, Havana remains the most politically influential force in the insular Caribbean, with a legacy of international solidarity that continues to earn respect across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
As the major powers within BRICS — China, India, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa — deliberate on alternative currencies, energy transitions, and new global power balances, Cuba’s presence is a reminder that the geopolitics of the Global South also carries Caribbean and island perspectives.
In alignment with Lula’s gesture, the final BRICS declaration condemned the use of unilateral trade sanctions and tariff increases as tools of political pressure.
However, the document did not directly name the United States or the administration of former President Donald Trump.
According to the declaration, the imposition of unilateral coercive measures violates international law.
BRICS rejected such actions, including secondary and extraterritorial sanctions, noting that these measures “have severe negative impacts on human rights, including the rights to development, health, and food security for the general population of the affected states.”
Cuban American activist Rosa María Payá was voted into the OAS’s Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on June 27 despite concerns from an independent panel of her “conflicts of interest” and lack of knowledge about human rights law. The Trump administration lobbied hard for the organization to select Payá, with whom it has close ties.
Payá runs Cuba Decide, which is backed by groups bankrolled by the U.S. government. She has also been a vocal supporter of Washington’s sanctions against Cuba, which have contributed to shortages in food, medicine and electricity on the island.
“Payá’s long record of support for the crushing embargo against Cuba runs directly counter to the commission’s purported mission of protecting human rights,” said Michael Galant, an analyst at the DC-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), which submitted a report on Payá to the American University Washington College of Law panel that evaluated her.
The panel noted that Payá “demonstrated limited substantive knowledge of the norms, jurisprudence or doctrine of international human rights law.” It also expressed concern about her membership in various civil society organizations.
Payá has leveled unfounded accusations against left-leaning governments in the region, such as calling Colombia’s Vice President Francia Márquez a supporter of terrorism. Márquez has criticized sanctions on the island as well as the U.S. government’s designation — absent any credible evidence — of Cuba as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism.”
Meanwhile, Payá has maintained warm relations with right-wing leaders like Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump. In 2020, Payá praised then de facto Bolivian president Jeanine Áñez (now in prison for leading a coup) weeks after her government committed massacres that were condemned by the IACHR.
OAS States Buckle Under U.S. Pressure
Payá was admitted into the IACHR in the first round of voting by twenty of the thirty-two OAS states that voted.
“A fervent advocate of human rights violations has now become one of the seven custodians of human rights in the region,” said Galant. “Her election to the commission is a stain on the institution, a reminder of the U.S.’s outsized and pernicious influence at the OAS.”
The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement soon after the vote accusing the White House of “blackmail” by threatening to cut aid budgets in the region if member states did not vote for Payá.
Payá’s selection was expected given Washington’s history of arm-twisting OAS member states to do its bidding.
Before the OAS General Assembly in Antigua and Barbuda, the State Department announced on June 24 that Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau would “meet with foreign counterparts and heads of delegation to advocate for the election” of Payá.
The State Department also put out a statement praising Payá and “urging” member states to support her candidacy.
After the OAS vote, Payá thanked Secretary of State Marco Rubio for paving the way for her selection to the commission through “bold leadership” and an “unwavering defense of freedom in our hemisphere.”
Trump Goes After Cuban Medical Teams
Payá’s selection to the human rights commission comes at a time when the Trump administration is ramping up its campaign to pressure other countries into cutting ties with Cuba’s medical missions. This campaign already appears to be impacting the IACHR, which recently sent an unprecedented request that member states submit information within thirty days about Cuba’s medical cooperation in their countries.
“The IACHR may be acting as an enforcer for the United States, a kind of policing arm advancing Washington’s agenda of tightening the sixty-year-old blockade to try to overthrow the Cuban government,” said Francesca Emanuele, a senior international policy associate at CEPR whose research is focused on the OAS. “The timing is highly suspicious, especially given the context, which puts at risk public officials who are working to expand access to health care in their countries.”
The letter was sent on May 20 by Javier Palummo Lantes, the IACHR’s special rapporteur on economic, social, cultural and environmental rights.
In the letter, Palummo submits a laundry list of requests for information about past and present Cuban medical missions, including details of the contracts, documentation of legal complaints, and information about medical personnel who have abandoned the missions.
“To issue such a sweeping request to all countries and announce that the information will be made public seems either malicious, externally driven, or dangerously naive,” said Emanuele.
The Trump administration has ratcheted up a long-running campaign to pressure Global South countries into cutting ties with Cuban health professionals under the guise of concern for human rights, claiming Cuban doctors are victims of “forced labor.”
Extensive research and interviews with the doctors themselves tell a different story. While available information indicates the Cuban state takes the lion’s share of payments for the missions in most cases, the Cuban doctors and nurses volunteer for missions abroad and are paid many times more than their salaries back on the island.
The Cuban medical teams most often are posted in urban neighborhoods and remote rural areas home to the poorest of the poor. The teams have also been dispatched in response to international health emergencies such as Ebola and COVID-19, and natural disasters including earthquakes in Pakistan and Haiti.
U.S. Leans on the Caribbean
The Trump administration’s propaganda and coercive diplomacy aimed at Cuba’s medical cooperation, coupled with harsher sanctions, is a part of its “maximum pressure” strategy to bring about regime change via economic strangulation.
The Cuban people bear the brunt of these policies, but government officials in other countries are now feeling the pinch.
In February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced visa restrictions for foreign government officials — and their families — who have welcomed the Cuban medical teams. And last month, Rubio announced that unnamed Central American officials had had their visas restricted.
The threats to restrict visas initially sparked outrage across the Caribbean, with several heads of government openly defying the United States.
But some governments may be bending to U.S. pressure.
The Bahamas announced in June it would cancel contracts with Cuban doctors after its talks with Washington.
The Bahamas health and wellness minister, Michael Darville, said his government would try to “enter into direct employment contracts” with the Cuban health personnel in the country but indicated that such an arrangement would need approval from the Trump administration.
“The services they provide in the country are needed, and so the [Bahamas] Ministry of Foreign Affairs is presently in discussions with their counterparts in the United States,” said Darville.
Meanwhile, Guyana is reconsidering its agreement with Cuba in response to U.S. demands.
“We are working to ensure that the people who come here from Cuba meet the definition because of what the U.S. secretary of state mentioned, that the conditions of work here don’t run afoul of the requirements set by the United States of America,” said Guyana’s vice president, Bharrat Jagdeo, at a news conference.
A Tool of U.S. Policy
The OAS has long served as a tool of U.S. foreign policy, supporting U.S.-backed dictators like Chile’s Augusto Pinochet as well as armed interventions, including the 1954 coup that toppled Jacobo Árbenz, Guatemala’s democratically elected president. At the insistence of the United States, Cuba was suspended from the OAS three years after its 1959 revolution.
Washington lost some control over the organization during the Pink Tide of the 2000s, when South American presidents like Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the Kirchners pushed back against U.S. hegemony in the region.
But in 2015, the OAS took a sharp turn to the right under the leadership of Luis Almagro, who wielded the organization to back far-right politicians worldwide, from Spain’s Vox Party to Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, and to vocally support Israel even as it committed genocide in Gaza. During Trump’s first term, Almagro said a U.S. military intervention in Venezuela should not be ruled out, a position that contradicted the OAS Charter’s principles of nonintervention and respect for national sovereignty.
Almagro, who counted on strong support from the Trump administration and Cuban-American hardliners like Rubio, also opened the OAS’s doors to prominent Cuban opposition figures, including Payá.
Almagro stepped down three weeks ago and was replaced by Albert Ramdin, a Surinamese diplomat who was voted in with strong support from Caribbean nations.
Even if Ramdin wants to change the course of the organization, his options may be limited given that its budget is largely subsidized by the U.S. government. The United States hosts the OAS headquarters and is its largest financial contributor at more than $60 million in 2024.
Washington may have even more leverage as the Trump administration proposed slashing its contributions to the organization by 75 percent in its congressional budget request.
The budget request includes $2.9 billion for a new America First Opportunity Fund (A1OF), which the State Department could spend at its discretion to “make America safer, stronger and more prosperous.” The OAS was not mentioned as a potential beneficiary of this funding, but contributions to the United Nations budget were given as an example of how some of these funds may be used.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 6 (Prensa Latina) Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel today denounced the consequences of the coercive measures imposed by the United States on the construction of the Caribbean country’s social and development project.
“The blockade is an act of aggression, the offensive application of which, when applied extraterritorially, damages the sovereignty of all states,” the president stated during his address at the XVII BRICS Summit, addressing the panel on “Strengthening Multilateralism, Economic and Financial Affairs, and Artificial Intelligence.”
Díaz-Canel recalled that in recent days, the US government approved a new package of measures, through a Presidential Memorandum, aimed at combating the country’s economic crisis.
“No other country has had to build its social and development project under the prolonged, cruel, and systematic application of an economic, commercial, and financial siege by the greatest power in history,” he noted.
The head of state emphasized that in the 21st century, there is no place for unilateral listings and certifications based on criteria he described as unfounded, such as Cuba’s designation on the list of states that sponsor terrorism.
The United States has no moral authority or international mandate to certify Cuba or any other country, he said.
To face common challenges, Díaz-Canel emphasized, humanity urgently needs solidarity, respect for differences, dialogue, cooperation, and integration.
“A firm and renewed commitment to multilateralism is urgently needed to guarantee peaceful coexistence and promote sustainable, equitable, and inclusive development for all peoples,” he stated.
In this context, the Cuban president expressed the importance of strengthening the BRICS group and expressed the Caribbean nation’s commitment to this task.
“Present and future generations have the right to live in a world of peace and security, where social justice, respect for cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity, and democratic access to science and technology prevail,” he reflected in his speech.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 6 (Prensa Latina) Bolivian President Luis Arce called here today in a speech to demand an end to the United States economic, commercial, and financial blockade against Cuba.
“Let us continue on the irreversible path of multipolarity, where unilateral coercive sanctions, such as the criminal economic and commercial blockade against our sister Republic of Cuba, have no place,” he stated, calling Washington’s retaliation an unjust measure that violates human rights.
Speaking at the 17th BRICS Summit (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) in Rio de Janeiro, Arce warned that this weapon of economic warfare, maintained for more than six decades, “limits the full development of the brave, dignified, and supportive Cuban people.”
He maintained that the common struggle to achieve a profound reform of global governance implies the rejection of current hybrid wars and the United States’ military intervention strategies, which are reiterated through NATO or through bombings such as those recently carried out in support of Israel’s unjustified aggression against Iran.
“It is inconceivable that the Security Council (of the United Nations) continues to be held hostage by a few countries and by obsolete operating mechanisms, such as the veto, which perpetuates imperialism’s impunity to violate human rights, sovereignty, and the right of peoples to self-determination,” he said.
Arce emphasized that we must reaffirm our firm condemnation of Israel’s genocide against “our Palestinian brothers and sisters,” and demand a solution that allows them to live in peace and dignity in their own territory.
In his words, he warned about what he called modernized colonialism and a “multidimensional form of warfare in which economic and political attacks interact.”
He indicated that this is a new style that uses corruption, drug trafficking, disinformation, and international crime as political weapons, within the context of a series of destabilizing actions; and that maintains the economic blockade and other forms of aggression against countries and governments seeking self-determination.
The dignitary warned that along these lines, military action cannot be ruled out to disrupt democratic processes that seek to break free from Western dependence.
“Bolivia has not escaped this type of war,” Arce stated, “wound by actors historically known for their alignment with the United States’ policies of domination, and which has been joined by factions of the popular camp won over to a line of action other than that of emancipation,” the head of state concluded.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 6 (Prensa Latina) Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed bilateral relations in the areas of economic cooperation, development partnerships, financial technology, and other sectors.
At a meeting on the sidelines of the 17th BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the two dignitaries also explored opportunities for ties in the areas of capacity building, science and technology, disaster management, and healthcare, according to diplomatic sources from the South Asian nation.
The Cuban president expressed his interest in India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), highlighting that country’s experience in the digital sphere.
Meanwhile, the Indian head of government expressed his gratitude for the Caribbean island’s recognition of Ayurveda and pledged his support for efforts to integrate this traditional Indian system into the Cuban public health system.
Modi proposed recognizing Cuba’s Indian pharmacopoeia, which will facilitate access to generic medicines from the South Asian nation.
Both leaders agreed to work on issues of interest to the Global South, such as health, pandemics, and climate change, and highlighted cooperation between their countries at the multilateral level.
The Indian prime minister had previously met with Díaz-Canel at the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg in 2023, where Cuba was a special guest, Indian diplomatic sources noted.
Trump administration officials and members of the Cuban exile community have pushed for a tougher line on Cuban leadership, arguing that the communist government represents a major national security threat. | Ramon Espinosa/AP
Cuba has taken five deportation flights since Trump took office, but the administration appears disinterested in improving relations with Havana.
Countries throughout the Western Hemisphere and Africa are finding ways to take advantage of President Donald Trump’s eagerness to thwart migration. But it’s not working for Cuba.
Even as Cuba continues to accept its citizens deported from the U.S., the island nation finds itself increasingly at odds with the Trump administration, a senior Cuban official told POLITICO.
The deterioration in relations between Havana and Washington comes as Trump administration officials and members of the Cuban exile community have pushed for a tougher line on Cuban leadership, arguing that the communist government represents a major national security threat. The U.S. is also facing a wave of migration from Cuba that has seen hundreds of thousands of Cubans enter the country since the Covid-19 pandemic.
In an exclusive interview, Johana Tablada, one of the top Cuban officials in the country’s foreign ministry that works on relations with Washington, said that the bilateral relationship is currently “at zero” and that “the State Department is not interested in having conversations with Cuba that have existed” even when both sides were most at odds in the past.
She added that under President Donald Trump, she and Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio have been snubbed by the State Department when they visited Washington — a change from past administrations, where Cuban officials were at least granted meetings with their U.S. counterparts.
The icy attitude from the Trump administration is surprising, per Tablada, given that Cuba proposed further dialogue with the United States on migration and has continued upholding a 2017 agreement between both countries allowing for deportation flights of Cuban nationals back to the island. Since Trump returned to the White House, Cuba has accepted five deportation flights.
Tablada’s comments suggest that caving to the Trump administration’s anti-migration efforts in exchange for goodwill elsewhere has its limits.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, backed by former special envoy Mauricio Claver-Carone, has especially pushed for a tough line on Cuba. Claver-Carone said in February that the administration had “very creative” policy options at its disposal to induce the collapse of Cuba’s communist government, long a dream of many in Miami’s Cuban exile community.
The Trump administration restored Cuba in January to a list of state sponsors of terrorism and reinstated a barrage of other sanctions lifted at the end of the Biden administration. A new State Department policy has also threatened visa restrictions on government officials in Cuba and other countries found to be responsible for labor rights abuses against Cuban doctors on state-sponsored medical missions around the world — a major source of income for the Cuban government.
Tablada blames the impasse in relations on those who advocate for maximum pressure on Cuba within the U.S. government. She denied allegations that Cuba mistreats doctors on medical missions or supports terrorist groups around the world. Tablada accused Rubio and others of stoking tensions to justify further reprisals.
“They’re doing everything possible to blow up what’s left of the relationship and the adult in the room is the Cuban government,” argued Tablada. “If we did what they wanted, we’d be giving a pretext for those people who want to break off relations, create a migration crisis and prompt a military intervention from the United States.”
The State Department and the White House National Security Council did not respond to requests for comment.
Despite the headwinds, Tablada says Cuba remains undeterred in its effort to build strong ties with the American people. “We’re going to continue cultivating our relations with the United States, which have a long history and have been neighborly and reciprocal,” she said.
