On Monday, June 30, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a memorandum to toughen U.S. policy toward Cuba by restricting financial transactions and travel by U.S. citizens to the island, further crippling its already weak economy.
The document indicates that the measures must be implemented within the next 30 days, and is a continuation of the economic harassment Trump imposed during his first term, when he dismantled former Democratic president Barack Obama’s new doctrine of rapprochement and diplomacy.
According to the memorandum, “economic practices that disproportionately benefit the Cuban government, armed forces, intelligence, or security agencies at the expense of the Cuban people are being put to an end,” referring to some partial measures to ease the economic embargo taken by former Democratic president Joe Biden.
In truth, the memorandum’s seemingly supportive tone toward the Cuban people serves to conceal the fact that the economic sanctions hit first and foremost the working masses who are living in a truly pressing situation with food shortages, long power outages, inflation, and unemployment, along with the constant cuts in subsidies imposed by the government of Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Specifically, the U.S. government will prohibit financial transactions “direct or indirect with entities controlled by the Cuban military, such as Grupo de Administración Empresarial SA (GAESA) and its affiliates,” which is the country’s largest business group, accounting for about half of the country’s GDP and controlled by the military leadership of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.
At the same time, a ” legal ban on U.S. tourism to Cuba ” will be imposed through periodic audits and record-keeping of all travel-related transactions for at least five years. It is well-known that tourism is fundamental to the Cuban economy, and one of the main ways that foreign currency is brought into the country.
While the U.S. is not the main source of tourists to Cuba, and tourism has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, the White House’s new measures will surely exacerbate the economy’s lack of foreign currency.
A Long-Standing Criminal Blockade
In the document, Trump took the opportunity to reaffirm the economic blockade against Cuba that has been in place since 1962 and opposed the declarations at the UN and other international bodies that, year after year, demand an end to it. It must be remembered that this blockade is truly criminal, including the purchase of food (Cuba must import around 80% of the food it consumes) and with many periods in which it has been applied to medicines and medical supplies, as occurred during the pandemic.
However, despite this, the country managed to be one of the first in the world (and first in Latin America) to develop an effective vaccine against Covid-19, demonstrating the importance of having a centralized state medical system (albeit very deteriorated and poorly managed by the ruling bureaucracy), designed during the first years of the revolution with the objective of serving the population, not generating capitalist profits.
On the other hand, Trump’s document states that the U.S. will seek to “amplify support for the Cuban people by expanding internet services, a free press, private enterprise, freedom of association, and lawful travel,” while reviewing human rights abuses in Cuba, “including illegal detentions and inhumane treatment.” This is the same old hypocritical rhetoric from the leading imperialist state that bombs and invades sovereign countries and uses its military bases as prisons where all kinds of abuses are committed. This is the same country that brutally represses social protest internally, as we recently saw in Los Angeles, and uses repressive forces to intimidate, detain, and deport immigrants.
The government of Miguel Díaz-Canel has been deepening internal repression and reinforcing the Bonapartist nature of the one-party regime to unprecedented levels, hand in hand with its openly restorationist orientation toward capitalism, which includes a series of harsh austerity measures against the working population. This has included a reactionary reform of the Penal Code with extremely harsh penalties, for example, for those who carry out street protests. Following the repression of the social uprising of July 11 and 12, 2021, hundreds remain imprisoned with draconian sentences handed down in arbitrary and invalid trials.
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However, any notion that the U.S. government — whether Trump’s far-right party or some variant of the Democratic Party — wants to defend human rights and promote a true democratization of the regime in Cuba is completely illusory and only serves to justify further imperialist interference on the island.
Finally, the memorandum also requests “reports on fugitives from U.S. justice living in Cuba or harbored by the Cuban government.” The Cuban government rejected the document, condemning it, stating that the measures it announces “reinforce the aggression and economic blockade that punishes the entire Cuban people and constitutes the principal obstacle to our development,” according to Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez.
Defend the Revolution, and Fight Imperialism and Internal Repression
While the Cuban government’s accusation is sincere, it fails to address its own responsibility for the critical economic situation facing the Cuban working class. The few available resources are increasingly being redirected toward “profitable areas” such as hotel construction for tourism or biotechnology for drug exports, while there is a shortage of over 500,000 homes and public health is deteriorating, among other serious problems.
It is clear that a truly progressive way forward for the Cuban masses will not come from Yankee imperialism, which seeks to return Cuba to its pre-revolution semi-colonial status, nor from the ruling bureaucracy, which only seeks to defend its privileges and the business it has with foreign capital in a wide variety of fields.
A new revolution would confront the imperialist blockade and join the workers’ and popular struggles throughout the continent. It would also overthrow the bureaucracy and end the one-party regime, replacing it with a true government of workers and the poor based on bodies of self-organization. This new government would reverse the austerity measures of recent years and all market reforms in accordance with the interests of the people.
A revolution with these characteristics is the only one that can confront social inequality and save the already degraded social gains that remain from the revolution, end political oppression, and return to the path opened by the feat of 1959 toward a society without exploitation or oppression.
This article was originally published in Spanish on July 4, 2025 in La Izquierda Diario
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