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“We don’t do politics,” a doctor at Cuba’s National Institute of Oncology said. “We just want to provide assistance to the population.” That was in 2024, during a research trip to Cuba in which we conducted interviews with weary, crestfallen doctors who explained how U.S. sanctions had made their job virtually impossible. They could not import crucial surgical supplies or replacement parts for radiotherapy machines, and they lacked the resources needed to treat large numbers of cancer patients.

Physicians in various Cuban medical facilities that we visited explained that the biggest problem during the COVID-19 pandemic was not, unlike in other countries, access to vaccines, which Cuba developed and produced in vast quantities. It was importing syringes and, crucially, lifesaving ventilators, after a U.S. business bought the two Swiss companies that had previously supplied Cuba. Medics everywhere complained that, as a result of U.S. sanctions, they faced shortages in dental prostheses, artificial limbs, and incubators, and they lacked the most basic medical equipment “from serum to intravenous bags, and even paracetamol.”

“We don’t do politics,” a doctor at Cuba’s National Institute of Oncology said. “We just want to provide assistance to the population.” That was in 2024, during a research trip to Cuba in which we conducted interviews with weary, crestfallen doctors who explained how U.S. sanctions had made their job virtually impossible. They could not import crucial surgical supplies or replacement parts for radiotherapy machines, and they lacked the resources needed to treat large numbers of cancer patients.

Physicians in various Cuban medical facilities that we visited explained that the biggest problem during the COVID-19 pandemic was not, unlike in other countries, access to vaccines, which Cuba developed and produced in vast quantities. It was importing syringes and, crucially, lifesaving ventilators, after a U.S. business bought the two Swiss companies that had previously supplied Cuba. Medics everywhere complained that, as a result of U.S. sanctions, they faced shortages in dental prostheses, artificial limbs, and incubators, and they lacked the most basic medical equipment “from serum to intravenous bags, and even paracetamol.”

That was before the current U.S. oil blockade, which U.S. President Donald Trump imposed on Jan. 30 and which has made Cuba’s situation much worse. Today, ambulances often lack fuel to operate, and never-ending........

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