 Since the 1959 Revolution, the United States has sought to overthrow Cuba's socialist government by any means necessary. From the Bay of Pigs invasion and hundreds of assassination attempts against Fidel Castro to the six-decade blockade, the relationship has been defined by U.S. aggression. The 1960 memorandum from Lester Mallory, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, made the reasons for this aggression clear: to strangle Cuba economically and create discontent internally that could be channeled against the popular government. Yet the current situation could produce an unprecedented effort to overthrow Cuba's democratically elected government. The reasons go beyond what is often portrayed in the media as merely Marco Rubio's personal agenda, forged by the anti-Cuba lobby in Florida. While Rubio’s presence certainly heightens the stakes, there are objective reasons why the U.S. has its attention turned to Cuba. After all, it isn’t just Cuba whom the U.S. has its eye on in the region, to greater or lesser extents, it has maneuvered to remove left-wing governments all across the Americas, from Bolivia, Honduras, Colombia, and Venezuela, where President Nicolas Maduro was kidnapped and jailed in the United States. Cuba is a central node in the operation to return the Americas to being the docile “backyard” of the U.S., which was outlined in the Monroe Doctrine. Since this has intensified with Trump’s presidency, many analysts are labeling it the “Donroe Doctrine.” The U.S. is facing a period of deep crisis. Its existence as a state for decades has been intertwined with its geopolitical position as global hegemon. But as the world transitions into multipolarity – a transition spearheaded by China, Russia, Iran, etc. – the U.S. experiences this as an existential threat to its global power, that is, to the force it could exert over countries to give up their raw materials and mineral wealth through imposed unilateral trade “deals.” It would be erroneous to think that for the U.S. this is merely a problem of “foreign policy.” It hits at the very center of what the American state is. The crisis is not just one the U.S. faces abroad but at home too. The failure of the U.S.-NATO proxy war against Russia and the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is accelerating this decline in the U.S.’s global power. More countries in West Asia, Africa, and the Americas are turning to China and Russia as key trading partners who offer them “win-win” deals, not unilaterally imposed arrangements. Under this predicament the U.S. has tried even harder to secure its influence in the Americas, which it considers to be the last global hemispheric region it could have virtually total control over. So, why a renewed and more intensified pressure on Cuba? There are two reasons, both tied to this objective crisis. The first is economic. In 2025 a report by the U.S. Government Geological Survey outlined the most important minerals for national security and new economies. Amongst those listed are nickel and cobalt, which Cuba just so happens to have one of the largest reserves in the world, ranking fifth in cobalt and third in nickel. Combined with the reserves Cuba has of oil, gold, and with its strategic geographic positioning in the intersection of the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean, there are clear economic motives for a U.S. declining in global influence to be turning its attention more aggressively toward Cuba. In addition to what Cuba provides in terms of crucial minerals, resources, and geographical positioning, Cuba – as a result of the crippling sanctions – has a labor force which, under conditions of U.S. control, could be employed for pennies on the dollar of what companies could pay Mexican or American workers. The cost of producing with a Cuban labor force could be extremely low if Cuba’s sovereignty is lost in U.S. aggression. The second reason is symbolic. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba has been seen as a bastion of resistance to capitalism and U.S. imperial aggression. The symbols of the Cuban revolution, such as the Cuban flag, the flag of the 26th of July movement, the faces of Fidel and Che, are flown across the world, from West Asia, Africa, and the Americas. For hundreds of millions – if not perhaps billions – of people around the world, Cuba’s existence as a socialist state ninety miles off the coast of the United States is a sign of almost biblical resistance, of David resisting Goliath. If Cuba falls, the global forces of anti-imperialist resistance would be terribly demoralized. It is for such reasons that the preparations for an attack on Cuba are a threat not only to Cuba, but to all countries who value sovereignty and the emergence of the multipolar world. How the world, especially those spearheading the transition to multipolarity, decides to react to U.S. aggression toward Cuba will dictate how bold the U.S. will be in exerting its will unilaterally across the world. Originally published in Chinese on QQ Author Dr. Carlos L. Garrido is a Cuban American Professor of Philosophy who received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He serves as the Secretary of Education for the American Communist Party and as a Director of the Midwestern Marx Institute, the largest Marxist-Leninist think-tank in the United States. Dr. Garrido has authored a few books, including Marxism and the Dialectical Materialist Worldview (2022), The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism (2023), Why We Need American Marxism (2024), and the two forthcoming texts, Domenico Losurdo and the Marxist-Leninist Critique of Western Marxism (2026) and Hegel, Marxism, and Dialectics (2026-7). Dr. Garrido has published over a dozen scholarly articles and over a hundred articles in popular settings across the U.S., Mexico, Cuba, Iran, China, Brazil, Venezuela, Greece, Peru, Canada, etc. His writings have been translated into over a dozen languages. He also writes short form articles for his Substack, @philosophyincrisis, and does regular YouTube programs for the Midwestern Marx Institute channel. He is on Instagram @carlos.l.garrido
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
June 2026
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed