Tuesday, April 28, 2026

Whither Cuba and the US?

While I am preparing my thoughts, some things to watch and read:


What To Do About Cuba?

Carnegie Endowment

Aaron David Miller, Ricardo Zuniga, Michael Bustamente

   https://youtu.be/Hl1MbcjGItg

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Cuba on the brink | GZERO World with Ian Bremmer and Michael Bustamente

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Ulises Aquino, creator of Opera de la Calle, prompts a debate about Cuba's situation

https://cubapeopletopeople.blogspot.com/2026/04/cubans-debate-their-reality-led-by.html

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Hints of Change in Cuba's Economy

https://cubapeopletopeople.blogspot.com/2026/03/symtons-of-change-in-cubas-economy.html

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Cuba pitches US economic roadmap as Trump pressures Havana

“So, the U.S. wants to be engaged in the economic transformation in Cuba? Let's do it," the top Cuban diplomat told USA TODAY.

Francesca Chambers   Rick Jervis

USA TODAY  March 31, 2026

https://cubapeopletopeople.blogspot.com/2026/04/exclusive-cuba-pitches-us-economic.html

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Apocalypse Now? Notes on intelligence and decorum

The most dangerous aspect of the current scenario, in my humble opinion, is not the low availability of fuel and its consequences, but rather the assumption that the imminent collapse of the system is a given.

by
 February 27, 2026

https://cubapeopletopeople.blogspot.com/2026/03/rafael-hernandez-on-current-crisis.html

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Reform and overcome the crisis, or not reform and collapse, that is the Cuban dilemma.

by Carlos Alzugaray Treto February 10, 2026

 
Sovereignty is not negotiable

La Joven Cuba

https://cubapeopletopeople.blogspot.com/2026/02/carlos-alzugaray-cuban-dilemma-la-joven.html

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Mariela Castro on Political Implications of Ending the Embargo

"the presence of a sole party in Cuba came from the fight against colonialism, from Spain. Jose Martin had the merit of creating the Cuban revolutionary party in Cuba as a sole party, specifically to achieve independence and to avoid domination by the United States. So that's the line that we followed in Cuban history because conditions haven't changed.,,,

If Cuba weren't the subject of an economic and trade embargo, which has created so many problems for us, then Cuba, it wouldn't make sense to have a sole party, just one party. But it's when our sovereignty is threatened that we use this resource, which has truly worked in Cuban history."

Amanpour and Castro Aired June 04, 2012

https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/ampr/date/2012-06-04/segment/01

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Is Trump a Russian Asset? Fiona Hill on the Trump-Putin Relationship


https://youtu.be/odciHpm4qnQ

 

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My own thoughts

As hard as it may be for many Americans to imagine, President Trump is uniquely positioned to end the embargo as well as the oil blockade and designation of Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism.

He can do that in conjunction with Cuba adapting to its needs the much admired Vietnamese creation of a market economy with socialist characteristics. The resulting flood of American and Cuban American visitors and investment as well as educational and cultural partnerships will help release the creative independence of the Cuban people in a natural and peaceful way. It will also inexorably diminish the role of Russia and China. If Mariela Castro was correct in her 2014 CNN interview, the end of the embargo can even mean the end of a one party system.

Embittered exiles should remember that her father Raul was responsible for Cubans regaining the right to buy and sell houses and cars and to own personal computers and cell phones. profoundly liberating actions that shaped current discourse. Entrenched Communist party bureaucrats and their anti-communist counterparts in Florida will see their material self-interest and power threatened but both have reached a dead end and may be open to a better future..

-- John McAuliff

more to come

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Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Mariela Castro on Political Implications of Ending the Embargo

 

Amanpour and Castro

Changes in Cuba

Aired June 04, 2012

https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/ampr/date/2012-06-04/segment/01

 

 

the presence of a sole party in Cuba came from the fight against colonialism, from Spain. Jose Martin had the merit of creating the Cuban revolutionary party in Cuba as a sole party, specifically to achieve independence and to avoid domination by the United States. So that's the line that we followed in Cuban history because conditions haven't changed.

And it hasn't been easy. We've been working for many years to achieve this. We've achieved it in many spheres, in human rights, the rights of women, health, in many areas. But in other areas, where we haven't reached that, we're still working. That demand, that Cuba have various parties, no country has shown that having plural parties leads to democracy.

So the suggestions that they want to make to us aren't valid. Conditions haven't changed. Cuba is a country that for over 50 years have been subjected to the violation of international law with the financial blockade which has not allowed Cuba to access development.

AMANPOUR: I think I heard you suggest that if the embargo was not there and if you were not under pressure, that there would be a different political reality or there could be a different political reality in Cuba. Is that right?

ESPIN (through translator): Exactly. That's right. If Cuba weren't the subject of an economic and trade embargo, which has created so many problems for us, then Cuba, it wouldn't make sense to have a sole party, just one party. But it's when our sovereignty is threatened that we use this resource, which has truly worked in Cuban history.

AMANPOUR: As you know, there are many people, even inside Cuba, who feel that if the embargo was lifted, it would actually cause the one-party system to collapse. It would cause, perhaps, socialism to collapse.

ESPIN (through translator): I don't think it would collapse. I don't think socialism would collapse. I think it would become stronger. This is why they don't lift the embargo.

 

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Tuesday, April 14, 2026

Cubans Debate Their Reality Led by Ulises Aquino

 Ulises Aquino Guerra

https://www.facebook.com/uaquinoguerra/posts/pfbid08xBQwn23LxLhS6tWLCEWKgN5PuEnpziAdtTPHmVT4iW5fVfvSGQD47rgXBurrq4Hl
Where are we going?
If we are sincere and honest with our reality, we will have to recognize the paralysis of national life as well as the subordination of our lives to the maintenance of a state of affairs that contradicts dialectics.
This narrow and dead-end alley in which the Cuban economy finds itself, which constitutes the only possible basis to overcome the dramatic reality we are experiencing, finds no possible way out beyond the traditional ideological discourse, but without concrete proposals, which if they exist the people do not know them.
People, fed up with so many needs and miseries, the only way they have to alleviate their sorrows is by shouting, protesting or showing their desperation wherever they can.
Responding with threats, persecution and jail is the worst option that power has to calm so much justified and just social uncertainty.
A government of the people and for the people has the mission of making them participate in the decisions that involve them, otherwise they position themselves as their main adversary even if their intentions were the best.
In extreme times like the ones we are experiencing, empathy towards those who suffer from all kinds of shortages is essential, they are not simple ideological or political enemies, they are citizens without answers, without a present, and we cannot talk about the future without taking into account today's reality.
My intention with this text is to call for a stop to the pressure and persecution of those who dissent. It is their right.
Every act of threat or intimidation to the one who protests or expresses himself is an affront to freedom, and no social system whose basis is based on denying the right to cry out in the face of pain can survive.
The only way to silence that clamor is to demonstrate that there is a project that involves us all towards the improvement of life, towards more real freedoms, because freedom is the only and legitimate engine of development.



Jesús López Martínez
I thought I would read an interesting article, but if it talks about problems in Cuba and does not refer to the blockade, it is disqualified.
Author
Ulises Aquino Guerra
Jesús López Martínez I understand: Tell me if you don't lift the Blockade what the Project is. Make this writing interesting.
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Yoryana Morffi
Sir, leave your cell phone and go take the dogs out to pee
Marcia Gasca
Jesús López Martínez the blockade is there and it does not seem that they want to remove it. We have been complaining uselessly at the UN for almost 30 years about this vote that changes absolutely nothing. It seems that this government took seriously the saying that goes: "So much goes the pitcher to the fountain..." but this pitcher has turned out to be of a very hard alloy. So, what is the proposal? To sit at the fountain and watch how the pitcher makes fun of us and always takes the water away?
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Fra' Vega Veranes
Jesús López Martínez I'm going to take it as a joke. I imagine that he is referring to the same blockade that prioritized and made possible the construction of hotels; while forgetting the precariousness of hospitals and the homes of Cubans; or to that tied economy that will make possible an eternal resistance;... and so on.
They repeat and repeat the same litany that keeps the government idly by; from speech to speech!
By the way, I don't see any of you, any of you, making a profound comment on Sandro Castro's recent statements; there, yes, all of them, deep thinkers; self-employed cyberfighters or maintained by recharges; also, the monstrosities of communicators who are out there; well, total silence or silenced!
Nor does anyone dare to comment on the travels and studies of the families and children of the rulers: they sleep on the pillow of blindness for some; and communicative vitality for others.
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Jorge Alejandro Mederos Camejo
Jesús López Martínez the blockade is the internal one, we are closed on all sides
Luis Rafael Curbelo
Jesús López Martínez The blockade, like the armor of the most sophisticated equipment of contemporary war, behind which 67 years of bad decisions, whether political, economic or social, are shielded.
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Yasmani Castro Caballero
Jesús López Martínez of course, because the Blockade is to blame for the fact that they did not liberate the productive forces as the Mayoral of this country was advised when there were conditions. Because the blockade is what does not allow artists to create freely and censors critics. Because it is the blockade that imprisons people for making a pots on social networks. The ideal of the Revolution cannot be defended with a praxis of state monopoly capitalism.
Jose Antonio González
And what I see as sadder is not material destruction.
The worst is the human one.
Gossip, social indiscipline, vulgarity, marginality, alcoholism, and the loss of all values; have metastasized in our society.
Alicia Palacios
Jose Antonio González everything is included: material and moral destruction, social destruction and everything else. It is very difficult for me, it hurts me to see how Cuba is doing.
Juan Manuel Alonso Lavernia
Jose Antonio González I fully agree with you that when a country goes through a violent crisis like that of the 90s, the cracking causes the ship to begin to sink and its crew members to lose their way. From those years on, the loss of values grew a lot and as the economy did not recompose itself, all the indicators of frustration, vulgarity, marginality and debauchery of emigration continued to grow exponentially.
Marcia Gasca
No solution. No proposal that involves us and that sets a course. The only thought that resonates in their mouths is, "We're going to hold out here until we're extinct."
Tony Gutierrez
What I have seen in the streets of Havana, in its destruction, its stench, its language and its way of dressing, tells me that we are heading towards a Haiti that is less black, more mestizo, but Haiti nonetheless.
Ludwig A. Rivero Sotolongo
Tony Gutierrez I would say that we have already surpassed Haiti in many aspects because at least they have an economy, worse or worse but they have it, so much so that many here go to look for products there to resell here.
Tony Gutierrez
Ludwig A. Rivero Sotolongo Haiti is living in Anarchy right now... the gangs rule by zones, and the "rulers" live in Paris...
Lisbet Ramos
You said it all.......... We need radical changes, starting with the top of power. They have not solved anything and will not.
Laudy Saul Leyva Yero
I have said it many times, and you ratify it, until the Cuban government, that is to say, PCC, does not publicly recognize that in Cuba there is an Opposition with its own criteria and has the courage not only to recognize it but to dialogue with it to seek real solutions, a large part of the problems that Cuba suffers today will not be solved.
It is time to finally understand once and for all that we cannot all think alike and defend the same ideas.
Why doesn't the President summon the great economists who think differently, but who are Cubans and can give very good ideas of how to get out of this quagmire?
As long as we continue to think that Cuba's problems are only economic, we will be denying the truth.
The problems are political in the first place, because the economy will depend on politics and with it and its development the well-being of a people.
Let's stop adding enemies because we don't know that in order to succeed we need the sum of all Cubans.
My only enemy inside and outside of Cuba is the Cuban who defends the Annexation of Cuba to the United States and an Invasion of the sacred land where we were born.
To be an ANNEXATIONIST, with or without knowledge of the facts, is the greatest baseness and betrayal that can be done to Cuba.
And that is what our José Martí taught us.
It is urgent that the people see that our senior leaders have a vision of the country and that they are capable of having enough courage to dialogue and seek real solutions taking into account the Opposition.
This is what China did and look at its tearing today.
Recognizing that if we have political prisoners it is not cowardice and releasing them all immediately does the country more good than harm.
No government has the right to imprison someone for thinking differently.
It is one thing for that Cuban to have committed a crime and another for shouting his opinion to be convicted of public disorder.
Public disorder is attacking someone in word or deed.
Mr. President, Cuba is experiencing its worst moment today.
Listen to the people.
Summon those who are really going to tell you the truth and what the people want and not officials who tell you things that are not uncomfortable.
Long before this crazy president of the United States lashed out with such fury against Cuba, there are thousands of Cubans who have been saying that changes in Cuba are urgent if we do not want Fidel's prophetic words at the University to come true.
L. Saul.
María Manuela Ruíz De Andino Pereda
Laudy Saul Leyva Yero His thinking is very accurate. I only see here the impossibility of Canela listening to us and intervening because he is not the one who directs and that is why we will continue like this until a "miracle" occurs, because that is how you think that our existence can be improved. Greetings.
Laudy Saul Leyva Yero
I've been shouting it for a long time.
But they are deaf.
Tomorrow will be too late to hear
Aidimary GP
Laudy Saul Leyva Yero
Don Saúl, forget it jjjj, you are, perhaps unknowingly, proposing CAPITALISM, taking into account everything you have said (and that socio-economic system is a terrifying term for them).
In addition, among the government's priorities is not to "move forward" the country, the real ones are different, read something about monarchies and you will understand.
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Jorge Alejandro Mederos Camejo
Wonderful reflection Aquinas, you exposed the reality of Cuba
Julio Caballero
Friend and brother Ulysses, each of your reflections are more real and courageous, thank you for telling the world our unfortunate reality
Maria Enelia Sosa
With you and your articles, clear, honest, that embroider the nuances of our sadness and despair, we feel relieved, because sometimes one believes that one ceases to belong to the real world and that everything that happens is just a bad dream, from which we are going to wake up. Thank you Aquino, good luck and health.
Zoila García Perera
You can't see the end of the tunnel, to be honest
Lourdes Alvarez Diaz
A hug dear Ulysses.
Valentin Puron Gonzalez
Social alienation according to Marx
Vivian Martínez Tabares
Valentín Purón González as well, and in musical language aimless gale. Because no one says when or how this situation will change. I got the power after 12 hours of blackout that followed 3 hours of electricity yesterday. And so... almost every day. What can be done? How to produce, create, study or simply live? I hope that on January 1st. not a liter of fuel, essential for many postponed emergencies, is used.
María Manuela Ruíz De Andino Pereda
But they don't read you, they don't listen to us. They are deaf, blind and many in the face of all the shortcomings and inequalities we go through and, the saddest thing, without an end.
Tatiana Faxas García
We are already on the way to succumbing...
Juan Manuel Stuart
Very good reflection.very necessary and very fair.
Felix Beaton
Holy word!!
Cesar Casillas
Precise words that contain the TRUTH of our country.
Unfortunately, they will be ignored by the Supreme Communist Power.
Ada León Irurzun
It is not possible to resolve the Cuba-United States dispute if there is not first an internal dialogue, where the necessary spaces are opened for all, that is why I appreciate your call for sanity, for non-violence over dissent.
Daniel Forte
You are absolutely right. But leaders continue to live in a parallel world and are refusing to see reality.
Pablo Socorro Gdez
The blocking indisputably k hurts us but we cannot blame it for all the misery and destruction of a country, doing and undoing without k anyone can give a criterion, close centrals, prohibit the private market and etc etc etc has nothing to do with the blocking my lord
Pablo Socorro Gdez
Certainly my dear Aquinas, you and I know perfectly well that power, the good life, good food and feeling the owner of doing things hold on to you
Idanys Báez
The reality of the people
Noel Villar
Enough of demagoguery
Néstor Martínez Díaz
That's how it is. Okay
Marta Caridad Ruiz
Freedom is the option to start development
Dayami Fernandez Escalona
And not to justify themselves in the blockade, which we know is real, but the government's management is terrible and as you say repressing everyone who protests, criticizes, thinks our people cannot take it anymore
Mercedes Corrales
When we have freedom, our country will change
Elvira Díaz Toledo
Correct words Ulysses, we are immersed in such an inertia that normalizes the abnormal. Society is in decay in a frightening way.
Sagittarius Sag
And where is Aquino? "Here or there?
Gerardo Alexis Barrera
Without freedom there is no development
Rafael Medina
Excellent 👍
Kely Avalo Fernández
For those who direct us, everything that is happening are conjunctural problems that the people suffer but they do not
Mirna Bruzon
What a magnificent word of total agreement with you is not to threaten, it is to speak clearly to this people and to involve them in the processes or plans, long or medium term, that show hope for improvement in the face of such a disaster.
Silvia Izquierdo
Hopefully someone will read that clamor that is individual, but it is becoming more and more collective
Anabel Acosta
I very much agree with you.
Daniel Prado Alfaro
Wise words...
Alberto Hernandez
Political exclusion can take sovereignty away. There is the example of Venezuela. A national project has to involve all its citizens, no matter how they think. Each repressive act is one more crack in society.
Elizabeth Godínez
Straight to the Jugular
Héctor Iraola
Or rather, impossible
Raisa Marble
Under this system nothing will be resolved, the change must be 360 degrees
Yamile Rojas Dias
My respects to you brilliant speech
Rosa Del Toro Navarro
There is no project that involves all of us, there are no projects..., if they harass and threaten a very young girl and her mother dedicate themselves to looking for drug dealers and criminals, they would be doing something healthy for everyone.
Magaly De Quesada
It is clear but if they parade again on the lro de mayo shouting and supporting so much misery, then ?
Luisa Molina
Every time I think of Cuba, the movie "The Matrix" comes to mind and I wish we had the saga here too


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