The intensified pressure against Cuba from Donald Trump’s United States is a blatant act of imperialist aggression. We oppose it, just as we reject all imperialist interference—by any power—in Latin America, the Middle East, Ukraine…
However, unconditionally opposing the US attack must not lead us automatically to politically support the government of the country under attack, whether in Cuba or Iran.
Our solidarity is with the peoples of these countries, especially with working-class and poor people. They suffer because of sanctions—and sometimes bombs—from abroad, but also at the hands of their own ruling class. The Cuban and Iranian governments also apply neoliberal policies, they also repress people who fight for their rights.
For this reason, given the terrible situation on the island, we are very glad to have been able to interview two sympathisers of Marx21 in Cuba, Jonathan Formell and José Julián Valiño Hernández. Both of them form part of the critical left on the island.
We thank them for taking the effort to answer our questions despite the extremely precarious conditions under which they are living. It is very important to listen to what they have to say.
What is the current situation in Cuba with the power cuts?
José Julián Valiño Hernández (JJ): Power cuts—blackouts—are creating an extremely harsh situation for the Cuban population.
They have been going on for perhaps four years and have become longer and longer. They began mainly in the eastern and central provinces, and especially affected the more rural parts of the island. [Note: the eastern part of Cuba has a relatively larger Black population and more poverty than the capital, La Habana.]
But one or two years ago they began to affect not only rural areas but the entire island, including cities.
Jonathan Formell (JF): Blackouts vary depending on the geographical area, but also according to people’s socio-economic situation. Yesterday, for example, I went to work and, by chance, there was electricity. Normally, where I work—an independent music venue—there is no power; it’s located in a less economically advantaged area.
JJ: The outages affect not only personal life but productive life as well. They impact businesses of all kinds: state entities, services, small and medium-sized enterprises, agricultural and non-agricultural cooperatives… They harm absolutely every aspect of the country’s economic, social and political life. Production levels are at a historic low across all sectors.
JF: Right now schools are operating in a limited way; universities are not functioning at all. I cannot teach at university as a lecturer. It is impossible to work under even minimally stable conditions—work is completely precarious.
JJ: Life has become far more precarious in every respect. For example, there is a great deal of rubbish in the streets of La Habana: it is barely collected and piles up on corners. People have resorted to burning rubbish bins.
How are people reacting to the crisis?
JJ: People’s response has been to keep resisting and juggling in order to survive. They have turned to charcoal and wood stoves, even in small spaces. This happens in La Habana, but especially in other provinces, where blackouts are more concentrated and longer.
JF: Yes, people try to resist by building community alternatives, which include both secular and religious initiatives, but it is very difficult. For example, there is currently no public transport, and private transport is extremely difficult because petrol is exorbitantly expensive. Taxi prices have skyrocketed and the state does not regulate them.
A litre of petrol can easily cost 5,000 pesos—roughly a worker’s monthly wage—and a shared taxi ride in an “almendrón” (a 1950s American car) can cost between 200 and 1,500 pesos. It’s completely unaffordable.
This has led to an exponential rise in bicycle use among more proletarian sectors and younger intellectuals. Cycling culture is growing, (despite the fact that Cuba lacks bike lanes and is extremely difficult to navigate, as the country is not equipped for this).
So, many people are reinventing themselves; Cuba is known for this. Cubans make the best of a bad situation. But in the end, it’s about different forms of exploitation imposed upon us, isn’t it? There’s a political law, not named by the international left, which we in the Cuban critical left sometimes call the internal blockade, exercised by the state against the entire population, and especially against politically active citizens (even those of us on the left). Added to this is the external blockade (embargo, etc.) imposed by the United States.
Some economically better off people buy electric cars or electric motorbikes (known as “grillos”), usually Chinese-made, with a range of 40–60 km. There are also electric tricycles that help the transport situation a bit.
This is how some people manage to get by, maintaining some level of productivity and taking food home, which is the most important thing right now. But under these conditions, buying a Chinese motorised bicycle is impossible for someone with a state job (a teacher, for example); one of these bikes costs over a thousand dollars.
In general, prices are unaffordable. Government measures have meant that there is almost no production. The economy is completely stagnant and serves the national private bourgeoisie and the bureaucracy.
Workers and peasants have no rights of any kind. Any food available has to be bought at small shops or stalls. There are many of these, selling the same products at almost identical prices. In many cases, the food is extremely expensive, and often low in protein, nutrients, or vitamins. Because food that nourishes you costs more.
What is the connection between the current situation and the previous one? You have already mentioned that the blackouts didn’t just start now.
JJ: If the previous situation was already critical, the current one is one of systemic collapse.
On 29 January, Donald Trump signed an executive order that greatly intensified the energy blockade against Cuba. According to official sources, following that, no oil tankers entered the island. Finally, on 31 March, a Russian ship—the Anatoly Kolodkin—arrived with 100,000 tonnes of oil.
Now people can go 18 or even 24 hours without electricity, as blackouts rotate between districts.
Hospitals are operating with almost no medicines or basic supplies—plaster, IV fluids, syringes, clean sheets, gloves… The public health system is severely weakened; it has almost collapsed. The education system has also been deeply affected.
The state has almost no room for manoeuvre in managing its own highly bureaucratic and stagnant state structure. It lacks ideas that would revitalise the economy and society. This is also, obviously, because there is no real dialogue between the people, the social classes, and the different sectors of Cuban society with those in power.
You mentioned social inequalities. On the international left, many people think there is no inequality in Cuba…
JF: Of course there is.
For example, some people with money are buying devices called EcoFlow, a solar panel and battery system. I’ve seen people in buildings in central parts of La Habana who already have these systems. That’s how they have electricity in their homes.
Recently, a donation of solar installations arrived from China, which were supposed to be connected to the public power grid. Now they’ve announced officially that they’re going to remove these solar systems from the public grid and rent out the solar energy.
They’re talking about rentals at stratospheric prices; I think 10 kilowatts will cost around a thousand dollars a year, something like that. Ordinary people can’t afford this. It’s for Cubans living abroad to pay for.
But these are private solutions, out of reach for most. You can see how the State is washing its hands of the people, and inequality is growing.
What do you think of the Cuban leadership?
JJ: Of course, we are completely opposed to Trump, but we must also bear in mind the responsibility of the Cuban government and the Cuban Communist Party (PCC). They wield considerable power over all entities and institutions in the country, and over individuals, obviously. They do not act in the interest of the majority, but rather in their own.
This has provoked social unrest. People are reacting against the PCC’s inaction. It is now a long-standing fact that they are incapable of addressing even the most basic needs, of delivering essential goods to citizens, to a town or a neighbourhood.
For example, we suffer from a continuous lack of investment by the Cuban government in the country’s electrical power system. Some important Cuban thermoelectric plants are over 40 years old, and investments in them have been scarce and poorly managed. There are many examples of bureaucratic incompetence and wasteful spending. Of course, the embargo is a problem, but it doesn’t explain everything.
Over the years, they have invested little, as a percentage of gross domestic product, in the electricity system: they prefer to build luxury hotels for tourists.
JF: The ruling party behaves culturally (outwardly and to some extent internally as well) like a left-wing party (pro-LGBT+, pro-Palestine, etc.), but in terms of actual government policies and economic projects, it is absolutely neoliberal. [Note: In 2023, a Cuban comrade wrote about the island’s government’s austerity program.] Let’s say that revolutionary culture is one thing, and Realpolitik (especially in economic and human rights practice) is another. The government is adopting neoliberal economic measures while, politically, maintaining elements of Castroism and Latin American progressivism.
On the other hand, this bureaucratic government caste has fragmented over time into different political ideologies; within the leading group there are sympathisers of Trumpism. For example, there is the influencer Sandro Castro (Fidel’s grandson), who recently gave an interview to CNN. He is the owner of a nightclub in La Habana, and he openly defends capitalism. And this is just one example.
Tell us about the attack on the Communist Party offices in Morón
JJ: For approximately twelve days running in March, there were spontaneous protests. The most dramatic protest was in Morón. It was the largest protest since 11 July 2021.
In Morón, a group of people went to the local PCC headquarters, as a legitimate complaint against repression, the accumulated irritation with the blackouts, the inability to solve their problems, the precariousness of life, inflation…
They carried out a very symbolic—yet very real—burning of the offices, the municipal headquarters of the PCC in the city of Morón, in Ciego de Ávila. [Note: very close to Morón there are the hotels of Cayo Coco, which until very recently continued to serve luxury tourism normally, while the population suffered blackouts and other shortages.]
I met someone who was at the protests. It turns out that in Morón the blackouts lasted 23 hours a day, and then there were barely 20 minutes, or maybe an hour, of electricity.
The protest was massive; a huge crowd took to the streets, clashed with the police, and began shouting. People dispersed, and a group marched toward the municipal Party headquarters, where the confrontation took place.
Some people entered the building and began vandalising property. The police were inside, and one protester was shot in the leg; he is currently in hospital.
Two minors, Jonathan Muir and Christian de Jesús Crespo, have been imprisoned since 13 March for alleged sabotage.
The Morón protest was highly symbolic because it targeted the PCC; the protesters wanted to defeat the party that holds political power in Cuba. It cannot be labelled an “anti-communist protest” because in Cuba we don’t have communism, but rather state capitalism. The PCC implements neoliberalism, just like Milei does.
The people demonstrated their weariness with those who make political decisions, who ultimately control access to food, electricity, medicine, social services, and more.
Explain the experiences of mutual aid in the neighbourhoods, etc. Aren’t there social services for these things?
JJ: Some of us are working on a community kitchen project. We prepare meals to distribute to people in need in the neighbourhood where the distribution takes place. Here, they practically don’t have a decent daily diet; they don’t have enough income to buy food, because we’re talking about retired people in Cuba who receive three or four thousand pesos a month. To give you an idea, a carton of eggs costs three thousand pesos.
According to economists, a minimum income for a person to be able to live on would now be about 40,000 pesos a month: their pension is only a tenth of that. So you can imagine how critical the situation is, and also the inflation the country is going through.
These initiatives are entirely grassroots, with the voluntary efforts of people who share some ideological affinity, of course. They are people who have the capacity and the necessary social connections to offer this kind of help.
There are also solidarity actions by churches, both Catholic and Evangelical. Meanwhile, social services in Cuba have collapsed. The Cuban government has cut all social spending. They have managed to reduce the budget deficit, but at the cost of cuts in education, health, social security itself, agriculture… In short, social services have been severely impacted by the crisis, and further neglected and crippled by state cuts.
What do you think will happen next?
JJ: Here we have to acknowledge that Trump changes his line all the time. In his initial statements, he said he wanted to provoke a popular uprising in Cuba, the same as he said about Iran.
But now it’s clear that there are some kind of negotiations underway for a negotiated solution between the elites. Even so, there are different proposals.
The US government, especially Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is saying that the measures in Cuba must include a political transformation.
This could mean a “remake” of what happened in Venezuela, removing Díaz-Canel from the presidency, with other changes, more freedoms, a multi-party system, and so on.
But the Cuban government, even its ambassador in Washington, says they are open to an economic transformation through dialogue with the US. It’s understood that, even removing Díaz-Canel, the leadership wants to negotiate to maintain its current political power.
So, I think the transformation model they’re proposing for Cuba is very close to the Russian model. And we already know that Trump isn’t worried about Putin’s authoritarian regime.
JF: Clearly, Trump’s interest lies in developing an imperial project throughout Abya Yala (the Americas). He seeks to reposition Cuba as a neocolony, as a new Yankee paradise project, for tourism-based extractivism. It’s also possible that he’s interested in some form of extractivism of natural and strategic resources, although this topic isn’t discussed much.
Many Cubans are prepared to do a deal with that power. I’m not talking about everyone, but I do know many people, including many workers and intellectuals, with an extremely Trumpist, capitalist, neoliberal, and far-right perspective. This way of thinking is very widespread in the Americas today. I believe there’s a possibility that Cuba will be repositioned within that colonial framework of the Trumpist project.
Almost the entire exile community is Trumpist, in my opinion. Even much of the Cuban activism that defines itself as centre or centre-left is pragmatically Trumpist with respect to Cuba (pink imperialism). I don’t know how far they’re really centre-left, but many of them call themselves social democrats.
So it’s complicated. I think it’s unlikely that Cuba will formally become a US colony. But that it will become a kind of neocolony or “ally” of the US is how those in power seem to be portraying it. It would be similar to the Venezuelan case.
There’s a lot of ideological and media support for something like that; almost all the thinking reproduced on social media goes in that direction. It’s fashionable to be what the US left refers to as ancap, anarcho-capitalist, to worship snakes, the Israeli state, paedophiles, right-wing evangelism, and billionaires like Musk and Trump.
A large part of Cuban society is heading in that direction. Toward Trumpism, Mileiism, toward total neoliberalism. And this includes sectors of the Cuban ruling class as well. As José says, this could lead to a neo-capitalist, authoritarian restructuring in the Russian style, or directly to the replacement of the Castro regime with a more US-backed one. I see this second possibility as less likely, though, because it would imply a very abrupt change in social and economic relations.
Faced with all this, we on the Cuban left must raise our voices in favour of a solution by and for the people from below, but it’s not easy.
