Cubans in Havana and across the island are being asked to sign the socialist government’s campaign “My signature for the Homeland,” a state-run show of loyalty launched by President Miguel Díaz-Canel earlier this month as tensions with the United States escalate. The campaign began on April 19 and is being carried out at workplaces and neighborhoods across the island of nearly 10 million people, with the government not saying how many signatures it has collected.
Who Has the Power
The campaign is being organized from above, with the government gathering signatures across the island to support national sovereignty and defy the United States. It comes as Cuba marks the 65th anniversary of its April 1961 Bay of Pigs victory over some 1,500 Cuban exiles backed by the CIA who failed in their attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro’s newly formed Communist government. The anniversary is being folded into the present political moment, with the state using memory, nationalism and a signature drive to rally people around the existing order.
The campaign has drawn mixed reactions inside Cuba. Some critics on social media mocked the effort, questioning why people would stand in line to sign when hunger and poverty are growing across the island. They said the government should allow people to sign in favor of things such as the ability to choose their president. That complaint lands squarely on the hierarchy of who gets to decide what political participation looks like and what choices are actually on offer.
Supporters say the campaign is a warning to the United States that civilians want peace but will not back down despite recent threats of invasion. Rodolfo Ruiz, 64, who sells sunglasses and other items out of his home in Havana, said, “Anything for the revolution,” and said he signed last week because of President Donald Trump’s ongoing comments over Cuba, “so that he may hear and know that we are willing to defend our sovereignty.” Ruiz also said, “Watch out, Trump. Think before you invade Cuba, think carefully. The people are prepared.”
What People at the Bottom Are Saying
Delfina Hernández, a Havana resident, said she would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Cubans to fight a U.S. energy blockade, which she described as a sharpening of longtime U.S. sanctions and what many refer to as the “imperialist threat.” Hernández said the community center she runs in Havana with her husband received sheets of paper for three days last week and opened its doors so people over age 16 could sign them, and that she was the first to do so. That small, local organizing effort is the closest thing in the article to horizontal participation: a neighborhood space opening its doors so people could sign.
Hernández said, “Cuba is something very sacred to us,” and, “We are well-armed, and the people of Cuba will fight to the very end. We are going to hit them — and with everything we’ve got.” Her husband, Alberto Olivera, a visual artist, questioned how Cuba poses a threat to the U.S., saying, “If it’s a failed revolution, then leave us alone,” and, “What do they care?” He also said he has been hungry at times but that the U.S. “pressure cooker” tactic would not work, adding, “If I’m a failed state, why are you seeking me out?”
Those remarks sit beside the material reality critics pointed to: hunger and poverty are growing across the island, even as the state asks for signatures in the name of sovereignty. The people being asked to perform unity are the same people living through scarcity, sanctions and pressure from both domestic governance and U.S. power.
What Washington Wants, What Havana Rejects
In January, Trump signed an executive order asserting that the “policies, practices, and actions of the Government of Cuba constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat,” something Cuban officials have repeatedly scoffed at. Trump has referred to the island as a “failing nation” and suggested a “friendly takeover.” In mid-April, he said, “We may stop by Cuba after we’re finished with this,” referring to the war in Iran.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who fled before the revolution, has called for “new people in charge” of Cuba. Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodríguez wrote in a post on X on Wednesday, “It is absurd for the State Department to claim that Cuba — a relatively small, developing country subjected to a brutal economic war — could pose a threat to the world’s greatest military, technological, and economic power.”
Díaz-Canel has said he does not want military aggression, but noted that Cuba has a duty to prepare to avoid it and, if necessary, defeat it. The Trump administration has demanded that Cuba release political prisoners, implement major economic reforms and change its way of governance, all of which Cuba has rejected. Cuba says it is open to dialogue and cooperation in certain areas as it pushes for the end of a U.S. energy blockade that has deepened the island’s crises. Both countries have confirmed recent talks, although details remain secret.
The Cuban government said the signatures are meant to condemn “the U.S. blockade and economic war against Cuba,” which it called a “genocidal act,” and to repudiate threats of military aggression while upholding “the inalienable right of Cubans to live in peace.”