Hundreds of Cuban women gathered Tuesday in Havana to decry a U.S. energy embargo and other measures imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump that are straining the Caribbean island, according to The Associated Press. The rally landed in the middle of a deepening crisis, with ordinary people facing the consequences of decisions made far above their heads by states and the machinery that serves them. **Who Pays for the Power Games** The crowd gathered at a park commemorating a 19th-century independence patriot, waved Cuban flags, held signs reading “Down with the Blockade” and clutched pictures of Fidel Castro and Espín. The protest was organized by the Federation of Cuban Women, a large organization with close ties to the government and the Communist Party, to honor the late Vilma Espín, the federation’s founder, a guerrilla fighter and Raúl Castro’s wife. The scene was not subtle: people gathered to protest a blockade while the official apparatus wrapped itself in patriotic symbols and revolutionary memory. Deputy Prime Minister Inés María Chapman and Deputy Foreign Minister Josefina Vidal led the demonstration along with Mariela Castro, daughter of Espín and former President Raúl Castro. The presence of top officials made clear who gets to stand at the front when the state stages its own answer to imperial pressure. The people in the crowd were there to live with the consequences; the officials were there to manage the optics. **What People Said Under the Pressure** Vidal said, “This policy of abuse has to stop,” and added, “The Cuban people don’t deserve this. It’s the most comprehensive, all-encompassing, and longest-running system of coercive measures ever imposed against an entire country.” She also said, “It subjects us to collective punishment, recognized as such under international law, and we couldn’t fail to be here.” AP said Vidal was a key negotiator in a historic rapprochement between Cuba and the United States in 2014 under the administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama. Leydys de la Cruz, a 57-year-old seamstress, said, “I am here fighting for the people of Cuba,” and, “I would ask Trump to leave us in peace. The situation is very bad because of the blockade he’s imposed on us.” Georgina Reyes, a 36-year-old IT technician, said, “I would tell him that we don’t hurt anyone. ... Please don’t hurt us.” Those are the voices that matter first: workers and residents describing the damage in plain language while the powerful trade accusations and policy language above them. **The Machinery Behind the Shortage** The AP report said that in early January, the U.S. attacked Venezuela and arrested its then-leader, disrupting critical oil shipments to Cuba. Later that month, Trump threatened tariffs against any country that sells or supplies oil to the island. Trump later said he didn’t mind when a Russian tanker carrying 730,000 barrels of crude oil arrived in Cuba last week, marking the island’s first oil shipment in three months. Russia has since said it would send a second tanker. The report said Cuba produces only 40% of the fuel it consumes, and that the shortage has paralyzed the Caribbean nation, affecting its health system, public transportation and the production of goods and services, and deepening an economic crisis that has plagued the island for the past five years. That is the hierarchy cost in hard numbers: a population made to absorb the shock when energy flows are cut, redirected, or threatened by states and their geopolitical bargaining. Trump has pressured for regime change in Cuba and threatened to take over the island while U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio — the son of Cuban immigrants — has demanded the release of political prisoners and liberal economic reforms. The U.S. and Cuban governments have confirmed talks, but the extent of those talks is unclear. The language of reform and negotiation hangs over the crisis, but the people in Havana are still left dealing with shortages, paralysis, and the fallout of power exercised from above. The rally, the slogans, the official speeches, and the fuel figures all point to the same arrangement: decisions made by states, enforced through embargoes, threats, and diplomacy, while ordinary people are expected to endure the damage and call it order.
