Editorial | Watching the Cuba vote

As recommended by 11 former leaders of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries, the international community should, this week, for the 34th straight year, vote at the United Nations to pass the resolution calling on the United States to end its economic embargo against Cuba.

The 14 independent CARICOM members, as has been the case for several years, should be counted among the countries casting ‘yes’ ballots in favour of the resolution. This is a fundamental matter of principle that ought not to be shrouded by blandishment, fear or implicit threats. The Caribbean must not become a party to collective punishment and, as the former CARICOM leaders pointed out, breaches of international humanitarian law.

The United States has maintained a full and permanent economic embargo on Cuba for 64 years, since President Kennedy’s imposition of the measures in 1962, following Dwight Eisenhower’s partial restriction on trade two years earlier. Fidel Castro’s communist government had come to power in Cuba the year before Eisenhower’s action.

Since then, the United States has periodically expanded and tightened the embargo, but has occasionally allowed limited economic contact during fleeting episodes of détente. However, a bad situation has taken a steeper downward spiral since Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency nearly two years ago.

CUBAN HEALTH PROFESSIONALS

In early 2025, the Trump administration claimed that Cuban health professionals, who worked abroad under government-to-government programmes, helping to earn foreign exchange for Havana, were victims of forced labour. The US pressured governments in the Caribbean, Africa and elsewhere in the Caribbean to abandon the agreements.

Jamaica, where 400 Cuban specialist doctors and nurses were critical to a burdened public healthcare system, initially defended the programme, saying that it complied with the island’s labour norms. But ultimately, the island’s government sought to renegotiate the terms of the agreement, leading to its collapse and the departure of most of the Cubans.

In January, Mr Trump increased the pressure on Cuba, imposing an oil blockade of the country, preventing Havana from importing fuel. Cuba is estimated to need 100,000 barrels of oil per day, of which domestic production accounts for about 40 per cent.

The upshot has been prolonged power-cuts, meaning little electricity for households, institutions, including hospitals and clinics, and for industry. Many Cuban factories have shuttered, its economy deeply stressed and ordinary Cubans pushed to the brink. This crisis has been further exacerbated by secondary sanctions, with the Americans threatening to punish foreign and American firms, including banks, that do business with sanctioned Cuban companies and individuals.

This is part of the backdrop against which the ex-Caribbean heads of government, including two former Jamaican prime ministers, P.J. Patterson and Bruce Golding, issued an open letter last week urging global leaders to resist “the blandishments and pressures currently being deployed by the USA to derail and defeat” the proposed UN resolution.

The former heads of government accused the United States of using its “illegal embargo” and secondary sanctions “to starve the Cuban people into submission”. This, they said, was not only a “brazen violation of Cuba’s right to sovereignty”, but derogated from “the most elemental human rights of a people established and declared in international law”.

FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE

The fundamental issue is not whether outsiders approve of or disagree with Cuba’s form of government. The more important matter is the principle of non-interference in a country’s internal affairs, a canon which the Americans vigorously embrace with respect to their domestic politics, judging by their complaints against supposed Russian and Chinese efforts to interfere in and influence US elections.

When countries are silent about breaches of this principle because they do not share the ideology or philosophy of the targeted country, they open themselves to the risk of intervention by states that disagree with their politics. In any event, for small countries that depend on a clear rules-based order in navigating the world, principles can’t be selectively applied: one rule for communist Cuba; another for, say, Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia.

How CARICOM states, including Jamaica, vote on the Cuba resolution will be closely watched. It could have a bearing on the perception of the region and of CARICOM elsewhere in the Global South.