“We have absolutely no fuel oil, absolutely no diesel.”

Readers might assume this declaration came from an energy minister in an Asian nation crippled by supply disruptions from the Iran war. But the country in question does not depend on the Strait of Hormuz at all for its oil imports.

In Cuba, a regime-change target for the US since the 1959 revolution, civilians have reportedly been enduring blackouts lasting up to 22 hours a day, while doctors are sometimes forced to manually pump ventilators to keep newborns alive. For more than four months, the country has received virtually no fuel — a single Russian tanker carrying 10 to 14 days of supply being the sole exception — because Venezuelan shipments have dried up entirely since January, when the US abducted Nicolás Maduro. Mexican shipments have been suspended after the Trump administration authorised tariffs on any country supplying fuel to Cuba.

The US president has since said he hopes to have the “honour” of “taking Cuba” and doing “whatever I want” with it, expressing a rather naked imperial appetite, even as White House documents invoke national security threats and human rights. This week, Trump escalated that pressure with an indictment against 94-year-old former president Raúl Castro, accusing him of murder and conspiracy to kill US citizens — news that has been reaching the Cuban people slowly, if at all, due to widespread blackouts on the fuel-starved island.

Against the........

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