Cuba Forgotten--Keep your Eye on the Ball
- Karen Levi
- Mar 29
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 30
90 miles away from Florida, we seem to have forgotten an island. Who's at fault?
Apparently, the president is "bored" with the war in Iran. Earlier this month, he engaged attention to Cuba. The press did not concentrate on this story, since they were preoccupied with a war. Usually, the President of the United States would also be focused on a war he started.
Reportedly, Trump said that Cuba might be subject to a "friendly takeover;" before adding that "It may not be a friendly takeover." I picked up on this development a few weeks ago, having already learned that the President has a short attention span and lacks responsibility for his actions. In normal times this would be absurd, considering that the middle east is in turmoil. This President, however, ceaselessly shifts focus.
Cuba's economic situation deteriorated after the fall of the Soviet Union (1991). Cuba found an economic stablizer in Venezuela. A mutually advantageous plan developed. Cuba purchased oil from Venezuela, and the latter benefited from Cuba's expertise in military matters.
Obama loosened restrictions on Cuba which resulted in increased travel, support from nongovernmental sources, trade, and telecommunications. I visited Cuba in June 2016. I found a country which prided itself on its educational, cultural, and healthcare systems. The government was not a democracy; however, the people were surviving. Synagogues, for example, traveled to the country to support the impoverished Jewish communities. Educational tours to Cuba multiplied quickly. The tours and trips from faith communities provided important cross cultural relationships with a Communist country. Certainly, overall conditions in Cuba could have been better. For example, food shortages were common; the infrastructure was crumbling; and most of the population was poor. Small private businesses popped up around the country, a positive sign.
Trump reversed these actions in 2017 and redesignated Cuba as a terrorist state. Trump's order accused Cuba of supporting "malign actors adverse to the United States." During Trump's second term, the situation worsened for Cuba when Maduro--president of Venezuela--was arrested and extradited to the United States. Simultaneous to this controversial act, the Trump administration seized and blocked oil from Venezuela to Cuba.
Thus, today Cuba suffers from a lack of fuel for electricity. The lack of fuel has created a humanitarian crisis. Schools have closed; hospitals lack power to provide care; businesses closed; and malnutrition and starvation are imminent.
The present crisis in Cuba and Venezuela reminds me of the anti Communist furor of the 1980's in Central America. Those days were fraught with unnecessary violence and questionable American interference in Latin American politics. General concensus today is that the intervention was unsuccessful. Central American countries, for the most part, continue to be marked by instability and violence.
Clearly, Trump desires to continue hegemony in the region, another example of his incesseant, narcisistic need to control nations for utimate pecuniary gain. The present chaos, death, and destruction in the Carribean and elsewhere result from the useless cabinet the president formed and the cowardly Republican representatives who supposedly took an oath to serve the people of their districts.
Yesterday, approximately 8 million Americans protested the present federal administration. That is about 2.9% of the overall population. Evidently, a country needs at least 3.5% to begin to change. I hope we continue our resistance and dissent for so many reasons, in this case to cease the relentless interference in other countries for nefarious purposes.
© Karen Levi 2026
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