Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said Tuesday that talks between Cuba and the U.S. are at a standstill, even after the island approved a series of free-market reforms. The deadlock sits on top of a harsher reality: new U.S. sanctions on Cuban President Miguel Díaz Canel, other officials, and companies key to the island’s crumbling economy, while the oil blockade has helped paralyze daily life with blackouts, fuel rationing, internet outages, suspended public transportation, and canceled flights.
Who Pays for the Power Games
Rodríguez said the newly announced measures were not mentioned or discussed in earlier talks between the two countries. “The recently announced (measures) are a matter of total and absolute sovereignty,” he said. “We have neither listened to nor are we interested in the U.S. government’s opinion on them.” He added that they “were met with a new package of unilateral coercive measures ... against Cuba.”
That’s the language of a government trying to move under pressure while another government keeps tightening the screws. Earlier this month, the U.S. slapped new sanctions on Díaz Canel and other officials, as well as on companies central to the island’s economy. Some of those sanctions came after Cuba’s Communist Party and the National Assembly of People’s Power approved 176 economic measures, described in the article as the biggest economic shift since the revolution. The reforms include more space for private businesses, free hiring of personnel and authorization for private banks and investment by Cubans abroad.
What the State Calls Reform
Those 176 measures open more room for private business and private banks, but they also show how far the island’s rulers are willing to go to manage crisis from above. The article says the reforms were approved by Cuba’s Communist Party and the National Assembly of People’s Power. That’s the apparatus making decisions for everyone else. The people living through the consequences don’t get a vote in the sanctions war, and they don’t get a say in the embargo either.
Rodríguez said the conduct of U.S. government officials was “generally respectful” during earlier talks, but he said it came with “constant aggressive statements against Cuba, threats of military aggression, and the imposition of additional coercive measures.” The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Silence from the empire’s mouthpiece. Familiar enough.
The Blockade’s Daily Damage
Rodríguez announced a July 7 debate at the U.N. General Assembly on the energy embargo imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump in late January. He said, “The blockade and the policy of aggression and hostility of the United States government against Cuba are a threat to the existence and well-being of the Cuban people, and to the exercise of their human rights.” He also denied that Cuba is a threat to the U.S., which he called “a major military and nuclear power.”
The article lays out what that blockade has done on the ground. It has further paralyzed Cuba’s economy. Prolonged blackouts have become part of daily life. Fuel rationing has tightened movement. Internet outages have cut people off. Public transportation has been suspended, flight cancellations have piled up, and basic services such as garbage collection and water delivery have been suspended. Workdays have been reduced.
That’s the hierarchy in plain view. Decisions made in Washington and Havana land on ordinary people first, and ordinary people pay for them last. The U.N. debate on July 7 will give the machinery another stage. The blackouts, rationing, and suspended services are already here.