Published on April 1, 2026 by the New Anticapitalist Party—Revolutionaries in France (translated from French)
As we write these lines, Russian and Chinese vessels carrying oil and gas have been authorized by the U.S. Navy to dock in Cuba. While these deliveries will provide relief to the population for a month or two—and all the better for it—they are the result of negotiations between the leaders of the Cuban Communist Party and the Trump administration. These negotiations hold nothing positive in store for Cuban workers, who are currently enduring a severe humanitarian crisis. U.S. Imperialism seeks to strangle the Cuban population. Cuba’s population is experiencing a major humanitarian crisis, the result of the tightening of the U.S. blockade.
Since January 9, the importation of fossil fuels has been blocked. Consequently, three major power grid failures occurred in March 2026. Families are forced to throw away food, and running water is failing to reach households, as water pumping systems are dependent on electricity. In hospitals, nearly 160,000 people are currently on waiting lists for surgery. This intensified blockade aims to force Cuba into making concessions, and the Cuban government is beginning to yield. On March 16—after acknowledging that negotiations were indeed taking place—Cuban President Díaz-Canel announced the issuance of a decree authorizing the Cuban diaspora to invest directly within Cuba.
Since the 1959 Revolution—which overthrew the Batista dictatorship—and the subsequent alignment of Castroism with the Soviet bureaucracy in 1961, both the Cuban and U.S. bourgeoisie had been expropriated. This new decree now authorizes them to invest—a practice that had previously been strictly forbidden. This represents a significant step toward the re-establishment of private capital in Cuba—a country where the private sector employs only 10% of the workforce and imports merely 15% of all goods—all strictly regulated through public-private agreements with the Cuban state.
Since 2010, leaders of the PCC (Communist Party of Cuba) have sought to accelerate the liberalization of the economy. Last February, the state announced that, starting in April, the rationing booklet would no longer cover the full range of food staples, but only a limited selection for the most vulnerable groups (pregnant women, the elderly, etc.). The population will now be forced to pay higher prices for food—within a market that is soon to be flooded with private-sector imports. This amounts to a handsome gift for foreign investors!
Workers worldwide must mobilize against imperialist interference in Cuba and against the attacks being waged against its population! The PCC leadership seeks to safeguard its own interests, even if doing so means further impoverishing the Cuban population. Until now, imperialism had refused to engage in any negotiations with the Cuban leadership; its sole objective was to oust them. The Trump administration, however, appears to be shifting its approach, having realized that the heirs to Castroism could serve as the ideal stewards for a forceful resurgence of U.S. capital and the bourgeois Cuban diaspora.
It is against this backdrop that the United States has authorized the arrival of Russian and Chinese oil, as well as the docking of the “Nuestra America” humanitarian flotilla. If this dynamic continues, the Cuban people will face brutal reforms—reforms entailing privatization, job cuts, and a deterioration of both public services and working conditions. They will be confronted with the forceful return of U.S. imperialism. To oppose this, they can rely solely on the conscious mobilization of workers—both on the island and worldwide—against imperialist interference and to preserve the gains of the 1959 revolution! It is urgent for workers and the youth to take to the streets to express their opposition to capitalist rapacity!
March 31, 2026 — Victor Mendez
