Translating Cuba – English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island

Cuba Was Neither a Spanish Wasteland Nor an American Miracle

The United States modernized an island devastated by war, but also placed conditions on its sovereignty: reading the Cuban present through the lens of 1899 demands more history and less rescue epic

Perseverancia Street, in Centro Habana, reflects the urban decay affecting large areas of the Cuban capital. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, José A. Adrián Torres, Málaga, Spain, June 6, 2026 /
Rolando Gallardo published on 30 May, in 14ymedio, a thought-provoking article on North American intervention in Cuba and the possibility that history might repeat itself. His argument has a defensible core: the US occupation of 1899-1902 effectively addressed the sanitary, administrative, educational and logistical problems the island was suffering acutely in the aftermath of war. To deny this would be absurd. The Cuba that the United States encountered was wounded, impoverished, exhausted and disorganized. The war of independence, the reconcentration policy, the destruction of fields, roads and sugar mills, and the final collapse of Spanish power had left a critical situation.

But acknowledging that reality is one thing, and quite another to present the Cuba of 1899 as though it had been a wasteland of poverty, ignorance and general neglect upon which Washington had to build everything from scratch. That is where the comparison becomes too convenient. And convenient comparisons tend to have a problem: they explain a great deal all at once, but they understand very little. Complex matters are not explained by simple reasons – those only make them more digestible for the public or the voter. Turning 1899 into a template for the present distorts history and oversimplifies the future.

Late nineteenth-century Cuba was not a blank page. It was a society devastated by war, yes, but also an urban, port-based, sugar-producing, commercial and culturally rich society. Havana, Matanzas, Santiago, Cienfuegos, Trinidad, Camagüey and Holguín were not villages lost among palm trees, mosquitoes and tropical resignation. They were centers with history, architecture, printing presses, theatres, cultural societies, international trade, ports, economic activity and a complex social life. One must not confuse an island ravaged by war with an island that had no existence before the arrival of the North American administrator with his ledger, his sanitation brigade and his wholesome faith in efficiency.

Avenida Zulueta in Havana, in 1900. / Library of Congress

It bears saying plainly, because otherwise one falls into a new version of the old Black Legend, now pressed into the service of a North American White Legend. Spain arrived at 1898 breathless, politically defeated and with a manifest inability to offer Cuba any acceptable way forward.

Spanish administration had been tardy, uneven, rigid and often incapable of grasping the depth of Cuban demands, trapped as it was in the tensions of the peninsular political system and in an alternation between conservatives and liberals that failed to deliver a real solution to the Cuban problem in time. Slavery was abolished late, autonomy came late, reforms came late, and war eventually blew everything apart. But from that to suggesting that under Spanish sovereignty Cuba – let alone its great cities – had known no material, cultural or economic development is a distance that history does not permit.

One thing is to acknowledge that reality and another to present the Cuba of 1899 as if it had been a wasteland of poverty, ignorance and general neglect upon which Washington had to build everything from scratch

Havana was not invented by Leonard Wood. Matanzas did not wait for the US occupation to become an economic and cultural center of the first order. Cienfuegos was not born from a North American sanitary decree. The Cuban railway did not appear by spontaneous generation between 1899 and 1902. The Albear Aqueduct did not spring up like a mushroom after an imperial shower. The Cuban sugar industry, with all its shadows – including the slavery that sustained it for far too long – was already one of the great economic realities of the Atlantic. The North American intervention rebuilt, reorganized, sanitized and modernized; but to modernize is not to create from nothing.

That nuance is not a scholarly footnote. It is the crux of the problem. Because if one starts from the idea that the United States found a Cuba without structure, without institutions, without urban culture and without economic capital, then the intervention appears as an almost providential operation: the Seventh Cavalry of the Western movies arriving, once again, to the rescue. The image may work in a film, but it should not suffice for continue reading

interpreting Cuban history.

Paseo del Prado, Havana, in 1900. / Library of Congress

The US occupation had genuine merits. In the sanitary field, the campaign against yellow fever was decisive, though one should not forget that the fundamental theory regarding the transmitting mosquito had been formulated by the Cuban physician Carlos J. Finlay. The United States contributed resources, organization, administrative discipline and executive capacity. In education, it promoted an ambitious reform, expanded the school network and fostered teacher training. In infrastructure, it repaired roads, bridges, railway lines and urban services damaged by war.

In the years that followed, the new republican era also left a vanguard, eclectic and often dazzling architecture, marked by North American and European influences, which gave Havana – and other Cuban urban centers – an essential part of its cosmopolitan splendor. In administration, it introduced more effective procedures and helped to organize a country emerging from a devastating conflict.

All of this must be acknowledged. But the reverse must also be remembered. That modernization was not an act of international charity nor an angelic mission of tropical sanitation. The United States acted with a mixture of pragmatism, economic interest, strategic vision and a will to regional influence. The Platt Amendment was the political price of that reconstruction: a formally independent republic, but one held under tutelage.

If one starts from the idea that the US found a Cuba without structure, without institutions, without urban culture and without economic capital, then the intervention appears as an almost providential operation

Cuba entered the twentieth century with its own flag, yes, but also with a sovereignty conditioned by Washington. The modernization brought sewers, schools and sanitary campaigns; it also brought naval bases and the right of intervention. That tutelary shadow fed for decades an anti-interventionist nationalism that would later be exploited, with varying intensity and no small degree of manipulation, by several generations of Cuban politicians, including the revolutionary one.

This is why the parallel with present-day Cuba must be handled with care. There are visible similarities: health crisis, infrastructure deterioration, shortages, power cuts, transport collapse, productive ruin, mass emigration and an exhausted population. But the historical causes are not the same. The Cuba of 1899 emerged from a war of independence against a retreating European metropolis. The Cuba of today emerges – if it manages to emerge at all – from more than six decades of communist rule, political monopoly, managed economy, repression, exodus, external dependence and institutional decay. One emerged from war; the other emerges from a long administration of failure and bearded messianism.

Cubans in front of Havana Bay, in 1899. / Library of Congress

The difference is no small matter. In 1899, the United States occupied a country that had just broken violently with Spain and needed to organize its transition to a republic. Today, Cuba does not need to replace Spanish tutelage with North American tutelage, because it is not under Spain or any European colonial power. It is under a national regime that turned sovereignty into a slogan while emptying the real freedom of Cubans of all content. That regime cannot be explained as a simple legacy of 1898 or as the inevitable consequence of the colonial past. The historical alibi has its limits, even in the Caribbean, where certain alibis tend to age in admirable health with a curiously gallego pedigree – in the old Cuban sense of the word.

The Cuban present cannot be explained indefinitely with a finger pointing at 1898, at Washington, or at historical fatality

It is true that republican Cuba inherited deep-seated conditioning. It is true that the United States intervened too much in the political, economic and strategic life of the island. It is true that the Platt Amendment left a mark of dependence. But it is also true that Castroism has spent more than sixty years administering the country, controlling its institutions, monopolizing patriotic discourse, expelling talent, impoverishing the economy and turning the supposed revolutionary exceptionalism – the eternal special period – into a routine of power cuts, queues, surveillance and flight. The Cuban present cannot be explained indefinitely with a finger pointing at 1898, at Washington, or at historical fatality. At this point, the Revolution is no longer a betrayed promise: it is a result.

Hence any eventual external assistance to Cuba, necessary in many respects, must not be conceived as a repetition of 1899. Cuba will need investment, technical assistance, energy reconstruction, institutional rehabilitation, productive recovery, sanitary modernization, educational opening and economic reintegration. But that is not equivalent to calling for a new foreign administration, nor to imagining that a North American intervention would resolve, on its own, what Cubans must rebuild with their own institutions, political pluralism and genuine sovereignty.

The underlying problem is not whether the United States can help. Of course it can. The problem is whether that help is conceived as cooperation with a free nation and a future ally, or as a temporary replacement for its political capacity. The first option may be necessary. The second reopens an old temptation: the belief that Cuba only functions when someone administers it from outside.

After more than six decades of authoritarianism, many Cubans on the island have not been able to practice or develop a genuine democratic culture

That idea, however well-intentioned in its formulation, sidesteps an uncomfortable question: after more than six decades of authoritarianism, many Cubans on the island have not been able to practice or develop a genuine democratic culture. Not from any natural incapacity, but because the regime has denied them for generations the everyday practice of deliberation, responsibility for public affairs – replaced too often by the national verb resolver [to resolve, to manage, to get by] – alternation in power, institutional trust, a culture of effort and free decision-making.

A society subjected to obedience, to double standards, to surveillance and to the liturgy of collective sacrifice will also need to rebuild civic habits, a culture of work, a sense of individual responsibility and ethical values damaged by decades of real socialism. But that political maturation cannot be imported packaged from Washington or decreed by a foreign administration: it can only be learned by exercising freedom.

The history of 1899, therefore, serves as a double warning. It warns against the delusional self-sufficiency of the Cuban regime, incapable of guaranteeing basic services while boasting of sovereignty. But it also warns against the fantasy of the external savior — that hope that a power will arrive, impose order, clean up, invest, discipline and then hand over a republic ready to be unwrapped. The American experience demonstrated efficiency, but it also left dependence. The Castroite experience proclaimed independence, but has left ruin. Between these two lessons, a third way should open up: national reconstruction with external support, but without ultimate political tutelage.

Cuba must not start over as though its history could be erased and rewritten under foreign supervision

Cuba must not start over as though its history could be erased and rewritten under foreign supervision. The island needs to free itself from an exhausted regime, yes; it needs to rebuild infrastructure, healthcare, education, currency, agriculture, industry and public trust. But it needs to do so without comfortable, false mythologies: not that of a Spain that left only backwardness, nor that of a United States that brought only modernity, nor that of a revolution that continues to blame the past and the external enemy for a ruin that is, for the most part, its own work.

History does not repeat itself exactly, but neither does it absolve — nor will it ever absolve — those who destroyed Cuba. Sometimes it merely disguises itself to confuse us. And in Cuba, where the political disguises in olive green have lasted far too long, it is worth looking carefully before applauding the entrance of the next savior.

Translated by GH.

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Canada’s Major Airlines Abandon Cuba Indefinitely

Air Canada, WestJet, Sunwing and Air Transat suspend flights and vacation packages as Washington’s deadline for severing business ties with the Cuban Government expires

A Boeing 737 MAX 8 belonging to Air Canada, one of the models used by the airline on its routes to Cuba. / Colin Brown Photography

14ymedio, Madrid, 6 June 2026 / Canadian airlines Air Canada, Air Transat and WestJet Airlines have indefinitely suspended their operations to Cuba, along with the vacation activities of Sunwing Vacations – currently integrated into WestJet Group -, citing ongoing political and economic uncertainty and a deepening supply crisis on the Island.

Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick explained that the decision was a response to “ongoing conditions of political and economic uncertainty,” and added that affected customers will be able to opt for refunds, among other alternatives. Air Canada had already temporarily suspended its flights in February due to warnings about fuel supplies at Cuban airports, and had subsequently postponed its return to 1 November 2026.

For its part, Air Transat announced that the decision was taken owing to “the current geopolitical situation in Cuba,” obliging it to suspend operations “for an indefinite period.” The announcement adds that affected customers will be notified of other available flight options.

In the case of WestJet, the company described it as a “difficult decision” driven by the “current operating environment,” in reference to the suspension of its vacation programs to Cuba. “We understand that this news may be disappointing for customers and travel agents,” the company stated, emphasising the impact of the measure on local communities and the Cuban tourism continue reading

sector.

“We understand that this news may be disappointing for customers and travel agents”

The Sunwing Vacations travel group – integrated into WestJet Group – also announced the indefinite suspension of its operations in Cuba, affecting the Sunwing Vacations, WestJet Vacations and WestJet Vacations Québec brands. The company explained that the decision was taken following a review of its programme on the Island and current operating conditions, and confirmed that the suspension will remain in place “until further notice.” Travellers with existing bookings will be contacted regarding rebooking or full refunds.

The announcements coincide with the expiry of the deadline set by Washington for foreign companies with ties to sectors controlled by the Cuban Government to sever those ties, under threat of sanctions.

Canada has historically been the primary source of tourists to Cuba. However, the current crisis has accelerated the withdrawal of key operators. In February, Canadian airlines had scheduled more than 600 flights bound for Cuba, according to data from analytics firm Cirium cited by The Globe and Mail.

This June, approximately 20 international airlines continue to operate in Cuba, a figure significantly lower than in previous years

According to information released by the Cuban Airports and Airport Services Company (Ecasa), this June approximately 20 international airlines continue to operate in Cuba, a figure significantly lower than in previous years.

Among the routes with the greatest presence, American Airlines holds the largest market share, with several daily flights from Miami to Havana, as well as connections to Santa Clara, Camagüey, Holguín and Santiago de Cuba. Delta Air Lines and, on a more limited basis, Southwest Airlines also operate in the US market.

From Panama, Copa Airlines maintains daily flights to Havana, Santa Clara and Holguín. From Spain, Air Europa is the only Spanish airline with direct flights to the Island, while Air China operates the Beijing-Madrid-Havana route, which also allows boarding in Madrid as an intermediate point.

Other international airlines maintaining operations in Cuba include Aeromexico, Conviasa, Wingo, Caribbean Airlines, InterCaribbean Airways, Cayman Airways, TAAG Angola Airlines, Bahamasair, Rutaca, Aruba Airlines, Fly All Ways, Sky High and Neos, as well as various charter operations from the United States and the Caribbean – though with a significant reduction in flight frequencies.

So far in 2026, at least eleven airlines have suspended their operations in Cuba, among them Air Canada, WestJet, Sunwing, Air Transat, Iberia, LATAM Peru and Turkish Airlines, caused primarily by the fuel crisis, the collapse of tourism and pressure stemming from US sanctions.

Translated by GH.

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“Cuba Is a Patient in Multi-Organ Failure”

Eduardo López-Collazo proposes a universal public healthcare system, compatible with the private sector – more or less along the lines of the Spanish model

“The first thing is to know the truth: how many people are falling ill, how many are dying, what is lacking and who is accountable.” / Universidad de La Rioja

14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 6 June 2026 / Eduardo López-Collazo belongs to that rare breed of scientists who are not content to observe the world from the laboratory. A nuclear physicist by initial training, with a doctorate in Pharmacy from the Complutense University of Madrid and a researcher in fields including immunology, sepsis, cancer and immune response, he has built a distinguished career in Spain within the field of biomedicine.

For many years he directed the Health Research Institute at La Paz University Hospital in Madrid, one of the benchmark institutions of the Spanish healthcare system. But his trajectory does not end with science. López-Collazo has also been a science communicator, columnist, cultural critic and author of books in which he tackles difficult subjects – cancer, HIV, pandemics – in prose capable of making the complex accessible to a general readership.

Born in Cuba and resident in Spain since the 1990s, he looks at the Island from the distance of exile, but also with the precision of a scientist and the sensibility of a writer.

A patient who became infected, the infection progressed to sepsis, and from there transitioned to a shock state in which the entire system has collapsed.

Question. If Cuba were a sick organism, what would its diagnosis be today?

Answer. Good question – I love analogies. I would say it is a patient in multi-organ failure. A patient who became infected, the infection progressed to sepsis, and from there transitioned to a shock state in which the entire system has collapsed. I would like to find another figure to describe it – one with a better prognosis – but I cannot find one. And it is a complicated situation because, with the resources currently available, there is nothing truly continue reading

effective against septic shock. I say this from first-hand knowledge. Sepsis and its complications have been, alongside metastasis, one of my main lines of research ever since I left the metaphorical Island – nearly three decades ago now.

Question. As a scientist, what concerns you most about a transition: the lack of resources, the lack of talent and consensus, or the lack of method?

Answer. I believe everything plays a part, but if I had to single out one cause, I would point to the lack of method. Both in science and in art – two fields that have far more in common than we generally care to admit – method is essential. Cuba has lived with its back turned to it; that is to say, turned away from the tool that makes it possible to identify an error, acknowledge it and correct it. Of course, the lack of resources is crucial. So too is the loss of talent, today scattered largely throughout the diaspora. And, regrettably, that diaspora does not appear to have reached any great consensus; nor do I see any within the Island itself.

“The talk of a medical powerhouse was propaganda with some grains of truth and a great many holes.”

Question.For decades Cuba was presented as a medical powerhouse. How much of that narrative was real, and how much was propaganda?

Answer. I want to believe that a number of public health programmes were set up on the Island that did work. Vaccination, the family doctors and nurses scheme, epidemiological surveillance – these are good examples, difficult to deny. There were also attempts to introduce cutting-edge technology, but in that area the failures were considerable, because as a rule everything is coloured by ideology. When that happens, it all goes down the drain – can I say down the drain? We see the same thing in Spain and in many other places. Either way, the talk of a medical powerhouse was propaganda with some grains of truth and a great many holes.

As I answer you, a vivid scene comes back to me. I am from a town called Jovellanos, in Matanzas, but I did my university studies and then stayed on to live in Havana. It was at the height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, while attempts were being made to contain the spread of the virus by methods that were, to put it mildly, rather unorthodox, when I saw that at the laboratory of the Jovellanos hospital they were pricking patients with the same lancet that, between one patient and the next, they would dip in alcohol. I remember I kicked up a tremendous fuss – and they listened to me because “he comes from Havana.”

In short: the narrative was inflated until partial virtues were turned into national myth. Cuba had good doctors; it did not have the perfect system it sold to the world.

Question.What should be the healthcare priority for a Cuba in transition: hospitals, primary care, medicines, doctors’ salaries, training, or statistical transparency?

Answer. You’re making this difficult for me. Let me think for a few seconds… The priority must be transparency. Yes, transparency. Without reliable data, nothing can be rebuilt. After that, and with equal urgency, come medicines, salaries, hospitals and primary care. But the first thing is to know the truth: how many people are falling ill, how many are dying, what is lacking and who is accountable.

“Cuba needs a universal public system, and if you press me, a mixed one with a strong public foundation.”

Question.What healthcare model might work for Cuba: a universal public system, a mixed system, a decentralised one, or would something entirely bespoke need to be designed?

Answer. I know that a large part of the diaspora is expecting me to say: private. But no – that would be a serious mistake. Cuba needs a universal public system, and if you press me, a mixed one with a strong public foundation. More or less along the lines of the Spanish model. What I am clear about is that it cannot be opaque, nor militarised. Public does not mean absolute state control. It must be decentralised, open to evaluation, compatible with regulated private initiatives and underpinned by robust primary care.

Question. Should scientists, doctors, artists and intellectuals take up public office during a transition, or should they remain as a critical conscience?

Answer. Some will need to take office and others should remain as a critical conscience. I will be among the latter, and from a distance – I’ll say it plainly, so we can spare ourselves a follow-up question (laughter). A transition cannot be left solely in the hands of recycled bureaucrats. But nor is it wise to turn every intellectual into a minister. I believe that lucidity is also a service that can be rendered from outside power.

Question. What risks do you see in a rapid opening-up of Cuba’s scientific sector: brain drain, opaque privatisation, technological dependence, capture by foreign interests, or the continuation of old structures under new names?

Answer. Allow me to put inverted commas around “Cuba’s scientific sector.” It is something rather anecdotal within the Island today. There are no longer centres of excellence doing science, and the scientists who have not yet left the country are worried about having electricity, not about interferon signalling pathways or the unification of the laws of physics.

At a certain point in history – I am talking about the late 1980s – there was a flowering of scientific infrastructure that is, by today, obsolete. Nor does a rigorously trained replacement generation exist. Many things would need to be picked up almost from scratch, and experience shows that science and its offshoots are never a priority for those who bring about the kind of social change the Island now needs.

“I research with a very artistic vision, and when I write fiction or do dance criticism I make great use of the scientific method – without that diminishing beauty in the slightest; quite the contrary.”

Question. Can artistic sensibility improve the way a scientist observes, questions, imagines and makes sense of life?

Answer. At last you’re letting me out of the scientific straitjacket. I was beginning to think it wouldn’t happen – that once you’ve been pigeonholed there’s no way to let people see the other facets.

Look, I don’t see the division between art and science; to me it’s a continuum. In fact, I research with a very artistic vision, and when I write fiction or do dance criticism I make great use of the scientific method – without that diminishing beauty in the slightest; quite the contrary.

I’ve told the story several times that one of my great laboratory projects took shape during the pas de deux in the second act of Swan Lake, in a production I saw at the Teatro Real in Madrid. I’ll just add, as an aside, that when I was getting close to having seen that ballet a thousand times, I stopped counting.

I’m not sure I’m making myself clear: without fiction, without dance – classical or contemporary – without cinema, without visiting galleries and museums… I would not be the scientist I am.

To conclude: art trains a different way of seeing. A scientist without imagination only measures; one with sensibility also suspects, connects and doubts. Science needs data, but it also needs beauty in order to formulate good questions. I always tell my university students that there are few things more beautiful than Maxwell’s equations. They are simple, concrete and only four. With them, the whole of electromagnetism is described. Pure beauty, comparable to the Sistine Chapel, the David or the Mona Lisa. And if we move on to quantum physics, relativity, or the theory of cell fusion to explain metastasis – well, that’s where we enter the territory of the sublime.

“I learned early that I had to camouflage my homosexuality, wrap it in newspaper, tuck it into a pocket and not let it show too much.”

Question. In a democratic Cuba, what place should sexual freedoms, family diversity and equality before the law occupy within the project of national reconstruction?

Answer. I am grateful for the question, because these things need to be said out loud. I am openly gay – I think at this point that is hardly a scoop – but I always remember that when I was very young, I must have been around ten, I wrote a sentence in my diary that still haunts me: “I will be myself later.” Later. Like someone who hides a suitcase under the bed to open it once the hurricane has passed.

I was born in a town, on an Island, and under a regime where anything out of the ordinary was punished. I learned early that I had to camouflage my homosexuality, wrap it in newspaper, tuck it into a pocket and not let it show too much. Otherwise, you didn’t even make it to the corner. Literally.

Question. Do you believe that a country which created forced labour camps for homosexuals is as tolerant today as it tries to project itself to the world?

Answer. I am told things have changed on the Island. Perhaps. A little. Just enough for some people to get a photograph taken. The truth is that Cuba continues to be a profoundly homophobic country, and the average Cuban – even the most educated, the most progressive, the most inclined to quote Lezama, that writer almost nobody has actually read – after the third rum, drags that particular deadweight along.

I notice it on the few occasions I find myself around people from the Island. On certain faces you can still read it, clear as day: “Fine, but don’t take it too far with the gay business.” I’ve also heard: “He’s gay, but the guy’s a genius at what he does.” The “but” as a safe-conduct pass. As if professional success earns you a temporary reprieve. As if excellence somehow compensates for the deviation. How generous!

That is why I consider it essential that any country aspiring to call itself free must have full freedom as its foundation – including sexual diversity. Without that, it excludes an enormous part of its own people. And no system, no party, no transition, no national project will have my endorsement if it intends to leave this matter for later.

Because we already know what “later” looks like.

I once sent a friend packing – a friend who was telling me, in all seriousness, that first many other things needed to be resolved before talking about LGBT rights. Of course. She had been born with those rights already in place. For her, they could wait. For us, they cannot. No one can spend an entire lifetime queuing to have the right to exist.

“Cuba needs memory so as not to repeat the harm, tolerance to integrate differences, and control mechanisms to prevent political inflammation from destroying the social fabric.”

Question. You have spent years studying the immune response. How can Cuba defend its future without turning the transition into another form of self-destruction?

Answer. Like the immune system: Cuba must defend itself without attacking itself. It needs memory so as not to repeat the harm, tolerance to integrate differences, and control mechanisms to prevent political inflammation from destroying the social fabric.

On that note, I recently published an essay entitled The Limits of Democracy in which, with the help of a neurologist friend, Pepe Castillo, we explain democracy through the lens of science. It would do no harm for those who are going to build democracy in Cuba to read it.

Question. What would be, for you, an unmistakable sign that Cuba has begun to heal?

Answer. A good sign would be that people are no longer afraid. I experienced that myself when I left in the 1990s – suddenly I stopped being afraid to talk about my plans, to criticise what was wrong, to talk about my dreams, to kiss my boyfriend in the street, and a long list of other freedoms. You know what? In recent times I have started to feel afraid again – afraid to be myself in certain places – and that means something troubling is afoot…

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This piece was produced in collaboration with Cuba Siglo 21 as part of the project “Cuba: Stabilise and Develop.”

Translated by GH

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U.S. Sanctions Reach Cuban Gold and Australia’s Antilles Gold

The company suspended trading of its shares after the inclusion of its Cuban partner in Minera La Victoria on the U.S. blacklist

The company had estimated that its two Cuban projects, Nueva Sabana and La Demajagua, could generate more than $1.763 billion over ten years. / Invasor

14ymedio, Havana, June 5, 2026 — Australian mining company Antilles Gold requested the Sydney Stock Exchange on Friday to suspend trading of its shares while it prepares an announcement regarding the impact of the sanctions recently imposed by the United States on Minera La Victoria, the joint venture it created in Cuba with the state-owned GeoMinera to develop the Nueva Sabana deposits in Ciego de Ávila and La Demajagua in the Isle of Youth.

The mining company has not yet detailed the extent of the blow. It merely requested a temporary suspension of its shares while preparing a statement for shareholders regarding the consequences of the sanctions. The trading halt will remain in effect until the report is released or, at the latest, until the opening of trading on June 10.

For William Pitt Wasmer, a Cuban-American businessman and heir to a family that owned mines confiscated by the Cuban government after 1959, the episode confirms the deterioration of a sector that Havana had hoped to present as a future source of foreign currency. “Now, in addition to the problems facing nickel and cobalt mining, gold mining has been added to the list,” he told 14ymedio.

Antilles Gold holds a stake in Minera La Victoria, a 50-50 joint venture with GeoMinera, the state mining company

Pitt believes the Antilles Gold case cannot be viewed in isolation and must be analyzed within the broader context that forced the departure of the Canadian company Sherritt International, which operated continue reading

nickel mines in Moa. “The other mining companies working in Cuba are facing very similar problems,” he said.

The sanction came at a particularly delicate moment for Antilles Gold. Just one day before the trading halt, the company reported that construction at Nueva Sabana was moving forward and that the Chinese company Xinhai Mining Technology & Equipment was advancing the manufacture of the mine’s concentrator. Antilles Gold itself described Nueva Sabana as “the first stage of its partnership with GeoMinera,” while La Demajagua remained scheduled as a second project for 2027–2028.

The structure of the venture illustrates the extent to which the project was designed to mitigate Cuban risk. Antilles Gold participates in Minera La Victoria, a 50-50 joint venture with GeoMinera, Cuba’s state mining company. The engineering, procurement, and construction contract for Nueva Sabana, awarded to Xinhai, was valued at $29.5 million and covered about 85% of the remaining development costs. Xinhai also offered a $17.1 million credit line, deferring part of its payments.

The Nueva Sabana project was intended to produce gold and copper. Antilles Gold presented it as a relatively small open-pit mine capable of entering production quickly. According to the company’s own estimates, adjusted for recent metal prices, the two Cuban projects, Nueva Sabana and La Demajagua, could generate more than 2.5 billion Australian dollars (US$1.763 billion) in cash surplus attributable to Antilles Gold between 2027 and 2037.

In addition to Gaesa’s extensive control over mining, the shutdown is also linked to “Cuba’s economic situation, with its complete lack of electrical resources and the fuel necessary to operate mining activities”

La Demajagua, located on the Isle of Youth, added another attraction: besides gold and silver, it contains antimony, a mineral considered strategic because of its industrial and military applications. Under Antilles Gold’s plans, the second project was expected to produce gold and arsenic concentrates as well as antimony concentrates or cathodes.

For a small company dependent on external financing, Chinese contractors, and international concentrate buyers, being associated with a Cuban entity placed on Washington’s blacklist may be enough to freeze access to banks, insurers, suppliers, and potential investors.

Pitt himself links the episode to Cuba’s structural crisis. In addition to Gaesa’s overwhelming control over mining, the setback is also due to “Cuba’s economic situation, with its complete lack of electrical resources and the fuel necessary to operate mining,” the expert said.

Pitt also connects the case to Sherritt, which, besides producing nickel and cobalt, participates in Energas, a key company for natural gas processing and electricity generation. “Apparently, only oil extraction continues, and even then we are already seeing Energas and Sherritt beginning to have problems delivering natural gas to the city,” he warned.

“It remains to be seen whether Antilles Gold will follow a path similar to Sherritt’s or whether, given that it does not have a major investment at stake, it will simply let events run their course without doing anything further,” Pitt concluded.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Castroism’s Empire Crumbles

By Julio M. Shiling | Jun. 5, 2026 — For decades, opponents of economic pressure against the Castro-Communist regime insisted that sanctions did not work. According to this conventional wisdom, Havana had learned to survive every restriction, adapt to every obstacle, and transform every hardship into political propaganda. Yet the dramatic developments following President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14404 have exposed the weakness of that argument. The events of the past month demonstrate that sanctions not only work, but that they work most effectively when they are designed around a clear understanding of the regime’s actual structure and sources of power.

Signed on May 1, 2026, Executive Order 14404 represents the most serious challenge ever directed against the financial architecture that has sustained Castro-Communism since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Rather than focusing exclusively on individual officials or symbolic restrictions, the order targets the extensive network of foreign corporations, investors, banks, shipping companies, hotel operators, and commercial partners. These have enabled the regime to survive long after the disappearance of Soviet subsidies.

To appreciate the significance of this measure, one must understand how the Cuban dictatorship reinvented itself after the fall of the USSR. The loss of Soviet support plunged the regime into an existential crisis. Faced with economic collapse, the leadership did not abandon socialism. Instead, it gradually developed a hybrid system that combined political totalitarianism with a form of concessionary capitalism controlled by the military.

The foundations of this transformation were laid through the Perfeccionamiento Empresarial process initiated in 1988. Under the banner of efficiency and modernization, military enterprises were granted increasing autonomy and economic authority. Over time, these military-controlled entities expanded into virtually every profitable sector of the economy. This evolution reached its highest expression in GAESA, the sprawling military conglomerate that came to dominate tourism, retail continue reading

commerce, transportation, banking, real estate, logistics, and foreign investment.

The result was not a free market but a military-commercial empire. Foreign investors entering Cuba were not investing in Cuban workers, Cuban entrepreneurs, or a Cuban middle class. They were entering partnerships with enterprises controlled by the armed forces and aligned with the Communist Party. The revenues generated by these arrangements flowed overwhelmingly into the coffers of the regime while ordinary Cubans remained excluded from meaningful ownership, independent labor organization, political participation, and economic opportunity.

For years, international corporations willingly participated in this arrangement. Hotel chains signed management agreements with military-owned tourism companies. Mining firms entered joint ventures with state monopolies. Financial institutions facilitated transactions that sustained the regime’s hard-currency needs. Shipping companies moved goods through military-controlled infrastructure. In doing so, many of these corporations became indispensable components of the economic system that preserved one-party rule.

Their participation carried consequences far beyond commerce. The Cuban labor system has long violated the most basic principles embodied in international labor conventions. Workers employed through foreign ventures had their wages appropriated by the state, lacked independent representation, and were denied the right to negotiate freely with employers. While corporations enjoyed access to a captive labor force, the Cuban people remained deprived of fundamental rights. The profits generated by these arrangements helped sustain the very institutions responsible for political repression, censorship, arbitrary detention, and the denial of civil liberties.

This is why Executive Order 14404 has proven so disruptive. By imposing secondary sanctions on foreign entities operating in strategic sectors of the Cuban economy and on those doing business with military-controlled enterprises, the order transformed Cuba from a manageable commercial risk into a potentially devastating financial liability. Access to the American financial system, international banking networks, and global markets suddenly became more valuable than continued participation in Cuba’s shrinking economy.

The sanctions did not stop at foreign corporations. Washington also expanded, on June 4, its focus to the regime’s ruling families and the institutional pillars that have long sustained Castro- Communist power. The Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on Miguel Díaz-Canel and his wife, Lis Cuesta Peraza; Manuel Anido Cuesta, Díaz-Canel’s stepson; and Alejandro Castro Espín and Raúl Alejandro Castro Calis, respectively the son and grandson of Raúl Castro. The measures freeze assets under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibit transactions with American citizens, companies, and financial institutions. In doing so, they signal a growing willingness to target not merely individual officeholders but the broader network of relatives, intermediaries, and beneficiaries that has surrounded the ruling elite for decades.

Equally significant has been the decision to sanction the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR), the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) and its travel agency Amistur Cuba S.A., as well as Minera la Victoria S.A. These entities have served as critical instruments of military control, neighborhood surveillance, international influence operations, regime financing, and political mobilization. By targeting organizations rather than solely individuals, the sanctions strike at the institutional infrastructure through which the dictatorship has exercised power. In the context of a future democratic transition, such measures reinforce an important principle: accountability must ultimately extend to individual figures, as well as the structures that enabled, financed, and perpetuated systematic repression.

The reaction to Executive Order 14404 was predictable. Before the June 5 deadline for sanctions exposure, a growing list of prominent foreign companies announced their intention to withdraw, suspend operations, reduce their presence, or distance themselves from the regime. Spain’s Meliá, long the largest foreign hotel operator in Cuba, began winding down management agreements affecting numerous properties. Iberostar followed with similar measures. Canada’s Blue Diamond Resorts announced its departure. Indonesia’s Archipelago International ended its operations. In the mining sector, Canada’s Sherritt International, one of the regime’s most important foreign partners, suspended direct participation and began winding down operations.

Shipping giants and financial intermediaries likewise moved to limit their exposure, while payment networks connected to Cuba experienced significant disruptions.

This exodus reveals an essential truth. The Castro regime’s post-Soviet economic model was never self-sustaining. It depended upon a continuous inflow of foreign capital, expertise, branding, technology, and legitimacy. Once those partners began departing, the vulnerabilities of the entire system became visible. The military-entrepreneurial class cultivated through decades of Perfeccionamiento Empresarial and consolidated under GAESA has now been deprived of much of its foreign investment capacity. As a consequence, the regime’s access to hard currency will inevitably suffer.

The significance of these developments extends far beyond immediate economic losses. What is unfolding today is the progressive dismantling of the institutional machinery that allowed Castro- Communism to survive after the fall of the Soviet bloc. The network of military enterprises, privileged monopolies, foreign partnerships, and state-controlled labor arrangements that enriched a narrow ruling elite is beginning to unravel.

That process carries profound implications for Cuba’s future transition to democracy. Transitional justice is not merely about prosecuting individual officials. It also requires exposing and dismantling the structures that enabled totalitarian rule. The economic empire built around GAESA and its foreign partners will inevitably become a subject of historical clarification, legal scrutiny, and public accountability once democratization begins.

Many of the corporations now rushing toward the exits would prefer to portray themselves as innocent business actors. Yet the historical record will show that numerous foreign firms knowingly entered partnerships with institutions controlled by a dictatorship that systematically violated labor rights, civil liberties, and human dignity. While responsibility for these abuses rests first and foremost with the regime itself, those who profited from the system cannot entirely escape moral responsibility for helping sustain it.

The rapid discombobulation of this military-commercial complex demonstrates that sanctions, when properly designed and vigorously enforced, can achieve strategic objectives that many once considered impossible. By targeting the regime’s actual sources of financial power rather than merely its political symbols, Executive Order 14404 has struck at the heart of the post- Soviet survival model that kept Castro-Communism afloat for more than three decades.

History may question why a policy sharing the clarity of these seminal actions seeking to deny funds to a criminal regime, was not exercised decades earlier. Nonetheless, it is better late than never. Ironically, on the day internationally celebrated as Workers’ Day, President Trump delivered a measure that directly challenged a system built upon the exploitation of Cuban labor and the enrichment of a privileged military elite. Whether intentional or coincidental, it may prove to have been one of the most consequential gifts ever bestowed upon Cuban workers. It delivered a decisive blow against the financial machinery that profited from their oppression and represented a significant step toward the day when Cuba can finally begin the difficult but necessary work of democratic reconstruction and transitional justice.

Raúl Castro Appears in Public for the First Time Since His Criminal Indictment in the U.S.

At the Karl Marx auditorium, packed with uniformed military personnel, Miguel Díaz-Canel celebrated the general’s 95th birthday and the 65th anniversary of the Ministry of the Interior with a totalitarian slogan: “Raúl is Cuba, and Cuba is untouchable!”

Miguel Díaz-Canel—dressed in olive green—presented the nonagenarian general not only as a historic leader, but also as the spiritual founder of Cuba’s security apparatus. / Cubadebate

14ymedio, Havana, June 6, 2026 — Raúl Castro reappeared this Friday in Havana wearing a military uniform and surrounded by the Cuban power elite and its repressive forces, at an event the Government presented as a tribute to his 95th birthday and the 65th anniversary of the Ministry of the Interior. The ceremony, held at the Karl Marx Theater, marked the Army general’s first public appearance since U.S. authorities criminally charged him in May over the deaths of the four crew members of two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft shot down in international waters in 1996.

The former ruler did not speak. Seated in the front row, he sent a message that was read by Minister and Army Corps General Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas. In the text, Castro congratulated the institution’s “officers, combatants, civilian workers, and students,” describing it as “an indispensable bastion in the defense of the sovereignty and tranquility of the Cuban nation.” He also praised their “unwavering loyalty” and urged them, in the “current historic moment,” to continue working with “order, control, and responsibility.” The message concluded with a call to “continue defending with honor and commitment the work of the Revolution and the future of the country.”

Miguel Díaz-Canel—dressed in olive green—presented the nonagenarian general not only as a historic leader but as the spiritual founder of Cuba’s security apparatus at the age of 27. Díaz-Canel recalled that the State General Staff Secret Service Corps of the Frank País Second Eastern Front had been created to confront “anything that could affect, compromise, or endanger the security of our rebel forces.”

Díaz-Canel asserted that the United States is targeting Gaesa “because it knows of its effectiveness in the face of the permanent economic siege” and because “the contributions of its companies to the country’s socioeconomic development are significant.”

The scene appeared designed less to respond to Washington than to urgently appeal to the loyalty of internal forces. Díaz-Canel called Castro the “leader of the Cuban Revolution,” the “teacher, guide, and inspiration” of both the Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, elevating the slogan of recent days into an all-encompassing formula: “Raúl is Cuba, and Cuba is untouchable!” The message sought not only to shield the aging general from external pressure but also to remind the military and security apparatus that, according to the official narrative, loyalty to Raúl is equivalent to defending the nation itself. continue reading

The reappearance came two days after the United States imposed new sanctions on Díaz-Canel, his wife Lis Cuesta, several members of the Castro family circle, and regime entities, including the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. Washington had already intensified its offensive in May against Cuba’s economic and military apparatus, particularly against Gaesa, the military-controlled conglomerate.

In that context, Díaz-Canel devoted a substantial portion of his speech to defending Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. “The attack on Gaesa is no coincidence; it is not just another media campaign,” he said. According to the ruler, the United States is targeting the business system “because it knows of its effectiveness in the face of the permanent economic siege” and because “the contributions of its companies to the country’s socioeconomic development are significant.” He also denied the existence of corruption or enrichment within the military elite, dismissing such accusations as “another great lie,” despite numerous indications regarding Gaesa’s opaque management of billions of dollars in funds.

What he did not mention, however, is that those “infiltrators” were Cubans residing in the United States and that the episode remains shrouded in considerable opacity

“The reaction of several companies leaving Cuba these days is the result of coercive measures by the U.S. government,” Díaz-Canel said. He did not name any hotel chain or company specifically, but framed those departures as part of a broader offensive that, according to him, seeks to cut off fuel, investment, credit, trade, food, medicine, and basic supplies.

The speech also revived a military tone. Before Raúl, Interior Ministry commanders, and Armed Forces chiefs, Díaz-Canel recalled the 32 Cubans “who fell in Venezuela on January 3.” According to his account, those men “went into combat” despite the “element of surprise” and the enemy’s “superiority in weapons and forces.” Their deaths, he said, left “a clear message of how millions of Cubans would act in defense of the homeland if it were attacked.”

He then referred to another episode presented by the Government as evidence of armed infiltration. Five Border Guard Troops members, he said, neutralized a group of ten men who intended to establish themselves in Cuban territory with “a considerable cache of military weapons.” “Five defeated ten!” he exclaimed, before highlighting that the commander of the vessel, though seriously wounded, “never abandoned his mission.” What he failed to mention, however, is that those “infiltrators” were Cubans living in the United States and that the incident remains surrounded by significant unanswered questions.

Díaz-Canel recalled the counteroperation known as Candela, which allegedly made it possible to “preserve Raúl’s life and publicly expose” Washington. / Cubadebate

The closing remarks took the ceremony to Guantánamo. Díaz-Canel invoked Operation Patty, an alleged 1961 CIA plot to assassinate Raúl Castro in Santiago de Cuba and stage an attack against the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo in order to justify military intervention. According to Díaz-Canel, the newly created Ministry of the Interior dismantled the operation through a counterplan called Candela, which “preserved Raúl’s life and publicly exposed” Washington.

The reference is directly linked to a recent event. On May 29, the commander of the U.S. Southern Command, General Francis Donovan, met at the perimeter of the Guantánamo Naval Base with General Roberto Legrá Sotolongo, chief of the General Staff and first deputy minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. According to reports, both sides discussed operational security matters and agreed to maintain communication channels.

Díaz-Canel thus linked past and present in a tense speech marked by nervous gestures. Operation Candela, the Guantánamo enclave, the 32 deaths in Venezuela, the intercepted boat, the sanctions, the departure of companies, and fuel shortages were all woven into a single narrative of a besieged nation.

“If the homeland is attacked, we will respond in legitimate self-defense,” he warned. “And if they attempt to enter, let there be no doubt: there will be determined and resolute combat!”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A Federal Judge Overturns the Suspension of Immigration Processes for Cubans and Nationals of 38 Other Countries

Chief Judge John McConnell Jr. calls the Trump administration’s actions “illegal, arbitrary, and capricious.”

Immigration Court of San Antonio, Texas, USA. / EFE/Alejandra Arredondo

A federal judge in Rhode Island declared on Friday that the policies promoted by the Donald Trump administration, which six months ago suspended immigration processes and asylum applications for citizens of 39 countries, including Cuba, Venezuela and Haiti, were “illegal.”

In a scathing ruling of more than 100 pages, Justice John McConnell Jr. states that these measures, adopted by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), left “countless immigrants residing in the United States in an indefinite legal limbo” and concludes that they were “contrary to law, arbitrary, and capricious.”

According to McConnell, USCIS assumed powers it does not possess. The national security reasons the agency cited for its decisions, the judge says, are pretexts intended to mask xenophobic sentiments, something the agency is prohibited from engaging in.

The measure blocked not only the processing of applications for asylum, permanent residency and US citizenship, but also work permits, which are essential to remain in the country legally.

The agency violated both the immigration laws it is responsible for administering and the administrative rules that govern its actions.

The judge maintains that the suspension imposed by USCIS was not in response to any misconduct on the part of those affected, but solely to the circumstance of their place of birth. He also determined that the agency violated both the continue reading

immigration laws it is responsible for administering and the administrative regulations governing its actions.

These policies were implemented after an Afghan national opened fire on members of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., in November 2025, killing one officer and wounding another. The ruling also includes statements by former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, endorsed by Trump, in which she proposed “an immigration ban on every damn country that has flooded our nation with murderers, leeches, and welfare addicts,” in addition to railing against so-called “foreign invaders.”

In addition to Cuba, Venezuela and Haiti, Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica were also included from the American continent, although most of the countries affected by these measures were African.

The court decision has been celebrated by Democracy Forward, one of the organizations that represented various immigrant and worker groups, including the Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

“This ruling reaffirms a fundamental principle: the federal government cannot suspend legal immigration pathways or discriminate against people based on their country of origin,” said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward.

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How Much Time is Left?

Nobody would bet that we have to wait the 62,000 millennia that someone once predicted, nor the two weeks (which have already passed) that the most optimistic predicted.

In the scenario of a social upheaval, where the people are the main actors, the temporal variable is expressed in the duration of those material realities that directly affect the duration of patience. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, June 4, 2026 / After it occured to me to describe what the scenarios and actors would be in a presumed transition in Cuba, those who read me keep asking how long it will take for everything to change or, at least, as the great culprit would say, for what needs to be changed to change.

Although time is a dimension that we appreciate in measurable units, days, months and years, no one would bet that we have to wait the 62,000 millennia that someone once predicted, nor the two weeks (already passed) that the most optimistic predicted.

So I’ll leave you with these “algorithms.”

In the scenario of a social explosion, where the people are the main actors, the temporal variable is expressed in the duration of those material realities that directly affect the duration of patience. The endurance of the people.

There is a time when even the best-stocked pantries in homes run dry, another when power outages cause food to spoil in market refrigerators, and another, slightly longer, when the lack of fuel cannot complete the mythical “supply chain: port, transport, domestic economy,” leaving the warehouses empty. After these events accumulate, families are left without food, and since there’s no electricity to pump water from the aqueducts, they can’t bathe, wash dishes, cook, or wash their clothes. Then discontent builds, a desperation that leads to continue reading

protest.

Time is bought with political capital, and its price is determined by the supply in that volatile market. Time is running out, and they have less and less political capital.

When time is introduced as a variable to predict how long it will be before those in power in Cuba decide to prioritize saving the country over the ideology of the only permitted party, one cannot forget that their specialty has been precisely buying time, and the 67 years that have passed prove it. But time is bought with political capital, and its price is determined by the supply available in that volatile market. Time is running out, and their political capital is dwindling.

It is often said that the patience of the people is like a time bomb. The situation could be compared to that scene in thrillers where, faced with a countdown clock, the person in charge of defusing the explosive device that leads to total collapse is faced with the dilemma of cutting the blue wire, to pave the way for reforms, or the red wire, to give the order to fight and unleash repression.

External pressure, exerted especially by the United States government with more cuts and military threats, has ripped out all the pages of the almanac that adorns the room where the dictatorship makes decisions, and an incessant ticking forces them to sit down to negotiate where there is only one option left: give in or commit suicide.

The variable of foreign intervention has its own timetable, which, although not unrelated to the patience of the Cuban people or the intransigence of the dictatorship, depends on internal factors.

Since the “Cuba issue” is an electoral theme for the United States government, as well as a point of inflection in its foreign policy, there has been much speculation that President Donald Trump would like to have this problem resolved before the midterm elections in November. The other, less precise timeframe relates to how much time the United States has left to end (in its favor) the conflict it is waging with Iran.

But Trump hasn’t had to wait to take other measures, such as cutting off the island’s fuel supply, giving a deadline to foreign companies who trade with the military in GAESA and, more recently, preventing Visa and Mastercard credit cards from working in Cuba. General Raúl Castro, officially dubbed in recent years “the leader at the head of the Revolution,” has been declared a fugitive from U.S. justice, and there is open talk of taking him by force.

To answer the question of how much longer, perhaps it is not necessary to synchronize the clocks of each stage, of each actor. The sun, for its part, will continue to rise in the East each dawn, indifferent to the will of humankind. There is less time left. That is the answer.

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Tourists and Wealthy Cubans Are Flocking to the Meliá Cohiba, One of the Few Hotels Still Open

Madrid maintains a “permanent dialogue” with Spanish companies in Cuba to “help and support them at this time”

The Meliá Cohiba is one of the few hotels in Cuba where you can still see enough guests. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Madrid, June 4, 2026 / There were quite a few people in the cafeteria and lobby of the Meliá Cohiba hotel, located a few meters from Havana’s Malecón in El Vedado, this Thursday. On an island that has grown accustomed to the absence of tourists, it was unusual to see a good number of people sitting drinking coffee or chatting in the armchairs at the entrance of the luxurious establishment.

“The pool gets pretty crowded on weekends,” a worker remarks. The prices are outrageous for the average Cuban: from $30 just to use the pool, to $200 for a six-person pass with drinks and food. In Cuban pesos, that’s 14,000 or 100,000, with an odd exchange rate of 480 CUP, quite different from the official rate of 527 per dollar.

The illusion is fleeting. The Hotel Sevilla, located in another prime downtown area of the capital, just steps from the Capitol Building, is completely empty. “Not a single foreigner: not in the lobby, not in the cafeteria, nowhere,” says a waiter. The crisis is even wiping out one of the hotels that in December still boasted of having almost everything. Here, a day at the pool is still affordable, at 8,000 pesos per person, which is why you can see—through the fence—a few Cubans hanging out. The cappuccino, at 450 pesos, is also cheaper than at the Cohiba, and you pay in cash, because there’s no Wi-Fi.

Offers for the Meliá Cohiba swimming pool. / 14ymedio

The two hotels, which represented stark contrasts on Wednesday when Cuba announced its partial withdrawal from the company managing them, will remain. For now. Spanish hotel chains have sought a middle ground in the face of US sanctions. The US Treasury Department will be able to impose fines starting tomorrow on foreign companies with ties to the military conglomerate Gaesa. The two largest players, continue reading

the Balearic Islands-based Meliá and Iberostar, have withdrawn from the properties where they had contracts with Gaviota, Gaesa’s hotel division—15 in the former case and six in the latter—and remain in the rest, owned by Cubanacán or Gran Caribe. This leaves Meliá with 19 hotels and Iberostar with six.

The Spanish Economy Minister, Carlos Cuerpo, was in the Caribbean on Wednesday for an official visit focused on strengthening business relations with Mexico. There, he addressed the issue hours after the Balearic government—of a different political persuasion—expressed a similar sentiment, and on Thursday the Council of Mallorca (the island’s governing body, controlled by the PP and Vox parties) did the same. Its Tourism Minister requested assistance from the central government. “In moments of uncertainty, it is important that companies know they have the support of the institutions, defending that they can carry out their activities with legal certainty, stability, and the maximum guarantees for their investments,” said Guillem Ginard.

Minister Cuerpo addressed the issue during an appearance in Mexico City: “We are closely monitoring the decisions of the US Administration regarding Cuba to minimize their impact on Spanish companies,” he said.

Cuerpo affirmed that the Spanish Government maintains a “permanent dialogue” with its companies to “help and support them at this time” and added that this backing is provided through the Economic and Commercial Office of Spain and the State Secretariat for Trade, which acts “as a bridge” including with the US authorities.

Spanish investments in Cuba are important, but it has fallen considerably in recent years. This June, the report from the cited Economic and Commercial Office in Havana recorded 70 investment transactions originating from Spain, in addition to 70 hotel management contracts. In total, since 1993, Spanish companies have invested €465 million in Cuba.

However, from 2018 to 2025, the drop is enormous. In these eight years, only 3.4 million euros were invested (0.7% of the total), the immense majority of which — 3 million euros — was invested in 2020, with a mere 442,230 euros in 2024 and only 9,990 euros in 2023. Furthermore, in five years of that period not a single euro was invested.

Of the total, the largest share corresponds to hotel services, at 34%, followed by tobacco, at 29%. Altadis, the Spanish tobacco company that merged with a French firm and is now part of the British group Imperial Tobacco, is the largest single investor, since it acquired 50% of Habanos SA in 2000 for $439 million. According to information published this Thursday in the newspaper El País, revenues for 2024 alone—$827 million—are double that investment.

The Sevilla hotel was a wasteland this Wednesday, coinciding with the announcement of Meliá’s partial withdrawal. / 14ymedio

With regards to Spanish exports to the island, they reached $870 million in 2024, although the data—from the latest published report—is quite outdated, especially considering the dramatic decline in recent months. For Spain, the island is not a major customer (ranking 51st globally and eighth in Latin America). “The exporting companies are mostly SMEs [Small and Medium size businesses]. More than 280 have a presence in the country through branches and more than 60 through investment projects,” the document states.

Added to this are the debts and non-payments, both with the State, and with hundreds of companies, who have even founded the Platform of Those Affected by the Non-Payments of the Cuban Government, whose amount they place at about 320 million euros.

Spanish hotel chains remain strongly linked to the regime through contracts with Cubanacán and Gran Caribe, and while there is speculation about whether there will be even more sanctions affecting these interests, analyses are multiplying that indicate the US is seeking a piece of the Cuban tourism pie.

Much further afield, from Jakarta, Indonesian hotel chain Archipelago International announced on Thursday its departure from Cuba, where it operated under the Aston chain.

The group’s communications director, Sari Purbaningrum, told the EFE news agency that “the global situation is uncertain for now” and his company is waiting “to see what happens” before deciding on a possible return to the island.

This Thursday, the main travel platforms no longer allowed booking rooms in any of the six hotels that the company operated on the Island, including Grand Aston Cayo Las Brujas, Aston Panorama Hotel or Aston Costa Verde Beach Resort.

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Havana Chronicles: “We Used to Complain About the ‘CUC’, But Now We Miss It”

Packed onto an electric tricycle through the streets of Havana, the passengers reminisce about better times.

In a city where every opportunity to get around shouldn’t be missed. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, June 5, 2026 / After waiting for ages, I manage to catch an electric tricycle on Carlos III Street. There are already five passengers, so I’m the last to get on, and my leg doesn’t fit. The only option is to leave it dangling to get anywhere in a city where every opportunity to get around shouldn’t be missed. So I travel to Fraternity Park with my thigh, calf, and foot hanging off the vehicle. I feel lucky to finally reach my destination.

Across from me, a woman with a worried expression says she can’t take it anymore. “I moved to the Isle of Youth more than 20 years ago, when it seemed like things were finally going to take off,” she reminisces, though we’re all caught up in our own dramas. Me, for example, took my first shower in three days at two in the morning this Thursday. I no longer know if it’s day or night, and sleeping at least five hours straight seems like a painful pipe dream.

“I made a little money buying good fish on the Isle of Youth for 18 pesos a pound and selling it here in Havana for two CUCs [Cuban convertible pesos],” the talkative passenger explains. The mere mention of those chavitos sets off a wave of nostalgia in the entire vehicle. “We used to complain about that currency, but now we miss it,” remarks a man sitting next to me. The times of the dual currency system looms as a new period of nostalgia, much like the 1980s once did. A decade some remember as one of abundance, but which I recall as one of strict surveillance and absolutely Orwellian. continue reading

I no longer know if it’s day or night, and sleeping at least five hours continuously seems like a painful chimera.

“With the little money I made selling fish, I bought a house in Nueva Gerona, even though I’m from here, from Cerro,” the woman adds. “Now my little house is locked up there because there’s no way to leave the island; it’s like being in a double prison.” The tricycle advances. A Lada behind us accelerates, and the driver lets it pass, but not before shouting, “Are you in a hurry?” Haste is a bad advisor in a city at a standstill. Even looking at your watch is considered bad form in a country where time is worthless.

I get off in front of the Aldama Palace. The entire area is boarded up, and sections of the roof on the upper floor of the once-imposing building have collapsed. A toothless man offers me a handful of hibiscus flowers in exchange for some money to buy food for his “little granddaughter.” I take out an Antonio Maceo, as the 50-peso bill is known, and exchange it for the bouquet of fragile petals. There was a time when I used to walk around Havana eating these flowers. It was a mixture of hunger and experimentation. I know the best part. There’s a fleshy area just below the pistil that you can chew with gusto; it has a flavor reminiscent of almond, but much milder. If the authorities at the Ministry of Domestic Trade find out, they’ll ration the hibiscus flowers too.

I jump off the tricycle, my leg completely numb. I limp like an undignified old lady crossing Fraternity Park as frail as I am. I run a few errands nearby, but almost everywhere I go, I find closed doors and a power outage. “No country can function like this,” mutters an old man as he passes me. “No country, no services, no people,” I add, amidst a yawn that reminds me I’ve been up for nine hours after barely three hours of sleep.

Returning home. There’s a green minibus at the taxi stand for the route along Rancho Boyeros Avenue to Santiago de las Vegas. In the back, a refurbished area for passengers, there are two low benches facing each other, each meant to fit ten passengers. It iss not the time to be overweight. Anyone who gets on the vehicle with a few extra pounds is looked at suspiciously. Where that man displays a broader frame, that young woman must be squeezed against the next passenger. Size matters, and so do pounds.

When we are about to depart, a woman appears carrying a framed picture, one meter wide by one and a half meters high. It’s one of those cheap prints, mounted on flimsy wooden boards, with a photo of a quinceañera. She asks us to make room for her to put the image on board, which ends up dividing the bathyscaphe in half lengthwise. The airflow between the windows on either side is cut off, the passengers are separated by the flimsy structure, and the rickety vessel starts moving.

Así viajo, hasta el parque de la fraternidad, con el muslo, la pantorrilla y el pie colgado del vehículo. Me siento afortunada de llegar a mi destino. / 14ymedio

I look at the flowing blue dress of the quinceañera in the portrait. It’s accompanied by a smaller painting of her in a swimsuit, smiling in profile at the camera. There are still people celebrating birthdays, baptisms, and weddings amidst the disaster we’re living through, I tell myself. The woman asks for help covering the large painting with a sheet and explains, “They were asking for 8,000 pesos to Mazorra, and I can’t afford that.” Once aboard the bathyscaphe, like any other traveler, she paid 1,000 pesos and treated us all to a surreal scene.

I arrive at Boyeros and Tulipán. I get down carefully so as not to spoil the image of the quinceañera that everyone inside the car is protecting, as if to safeguard this innocence that the harshness of reality will shatter. I get out, pay the driver. I turn right. I reach into my purse and find the withered hibiscus. The Ministry of Transportation’s generator is already whirring, a sign that there’s no electricity at my house. I take a bite of the bunch of flowers and head towards my own hill, towards the steep mountain that awaits me.

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Previous Havana Chronicles:

The Roar of Despair of a Cuban Woman Returning to Her Country After Many Years

The Tulipán Market Closed: “They’ve Given the Order To Go to the March for Raúl”

Along Carlos III Street and towards Ethiopia

Sleeping Is Also a Privilege in Havana

A Desperate Plea in the Middle of the Dark Havana Night: ‘Light!’

The Refuse of Disenchantment

Under a Picture-Postcard Blue Sky, the Country is Crumbling

Fatigue Barely Allows One to Enjoy the ‘Lights On’ in Havana

Dollars, the Classic Card, and a Havana Without Tourists

A Journey Through the Lost Names of Havana

The Shipwreck of a Ship Called “Cuba”

Havana Seen From ‘The Control Tower’

In Havana, the Only Ones Who Move Are the Mosquitoes

Reina, the Stately Street Where Garbage is Sold

Searching for Light Through the Deserted Streets of Havana

The Death Throes of ‘Granma’, the Mouthpiece of a Regime Cornered by Crisis

The Anxiety of the Disconnected Cuban

One Mella, Three Mellas, Life in Cuba Is Measured in Thousands of Pesos

It Is Forbidden To Leave Home in Cuba Today Because It Is a “Counter-Revolutionary Day”

Vedado, the Heart of Havana’s Nightlife, Is Now Converted Into a Desert

Havana, in Critical Condition

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The OCDH Asks the European Union To Create an International Fund for Victims of Communism

The NGO states that the mechanism it proposes “could compensate victims with the resources embezzled and plundered from the Cuban people by the Havana regime”

“”Assets stolen from Cubans should be used to compensate Cubans,” says the OCDH. / 14ymedio

14ymedio/EFE, Havana, June 5, 2026 – The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH) formally urged the authorities of the European Union (EU) to participate in the creation of an “International Compensation Fund for the Victims of Crimes Against Humanity of the Cuban Communist Regime,” according to a statement issued this Thursday.

The OCDH delivered its petition to the Madrid office of the representations of the European Commission and the European Parliament in Spain, according to the statement.

The NGO states that the mechanism it proposes “could compensate victims with the resources embezzled and plundered from the Cuban people by the Havana regime,” because “assets stolen from Cubans should be used to compensate Cubans.”

The petition is addressed to the principal European authorities, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

“The Havana regime confiscated the people’s property and concentrated the assets in what is now known as Gaesa”

“It is wealth extracted from the sweat of Cubans,” denounced OCDH Executive Director Alejandro González Raga, explaining that “the Havana regime confiscated the people’s property and concentrated the assets in continue reading

what is now known as Gaesa [Business Administration Group S.A.], an opaque military structure.”

According to the statement, the United States Department of State “estimates the illicit assets of that conglomerate deposited in foreign accounts at up to 20 billion dollars.”

The petition comes after the U.S. Executive Order of May 1, which provides for sanctions against individuals and companies that maintain business relations with the Cuban state, and the sanctioning, one week later, of Gaesa.

“Every dollar frozen from Gaesa is a dollar available to compensate victims,” the OCDH states.

The Observatory emphasizes the need for action by the EU, since, in its view, it has the necessary legal mechanisms to carry out the requested action, and urges its participation as a founding organization in the Compensation Fund with an initial contribution and technical assistance.

“Europe was conceived as a community of values, not only of interests; the time has come to prove it,” González Raga concluded.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Confirmation of the 28-Year Sentence Against Álvaro Uribe’s Brother for Creating a Paramilitary Group

The former president respects and adheres to the decision of the Supreme Court but reaffirms his argument that Santiago Uribe is innocent

The Court believes that rancher Santiago Uribe created and financed the paramilitary group The Twelve Apostles. / Justice for Colombia

14ymedio/ EFE, Bogota, June 5, 2026 – The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice confirmed this Thursday the sentence of 28 years and three months in prison against rancher Santiago Uribe, the brother of former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010). for creating and financing the paramilitary group The Twelve Apostles.

“Dr. Jaime Granados (the Uribe family’s attorney) informs me that the newspaper information tells him that the Supreme Court confirms the conviction against my brother Santiago, a devastating issue for my family,” expressed the former president in a message published on X.

The Court confirmed that Santiago Uribe committed the crimes of conspiracy and homicide, both aggravated, by participating in the formation of The Twelve Apostles, a paramilitary group that was born in the municipality of Yarumal, department of Antioquia (northwest), and was also involved in the 1994 murder of Camilo Barrientos.

The Full Chamber confirmed “the judgment delivered on November 25, 2025 by the Superior Court of Antioquia, whereby it convicted Santiago Uribe Vélez as a co-perpetrator criminally responsible for aggravated felony conspiracy and aggravated homicide, as a combination of crimes against humanity,” a decision against which “no appeal is possible.” continue reading

Uribe’s defense was led by attorney Jaime Granados, who is also the lawyer for the former president in his judicial cases. He said on several occasions that there were false witnesses and even media manipulation in the trial.

“Judicial decisions must be respected and complied with. However, through the legal mechanisms enshrined in the legal system, we will continue to defend the innocence of Santiago, because the 16 years of knowledge of this case allow us to warn that he is being unjustly condemned,” Granados stated.

Allí added that he and his team will study “the full content of the decision and the votes,” after which they will announce “more details.”

Former President Uribe, meanwhile, has been denounced for his alleged links with the paramilitaries in his years as governor of Antioquia

Former President Uribe, meanwhile, has been denounced for his alleged ties with the paramilitaries in his years as governor of Antioquia (1995-1997), including one that indirectly links him to the massacre at El Aro, in which 17 farmers were killed in October 1997.

Commenting on the events, Colombian president Gustavo Petro assured that Colombia must “free itself from the paramilitary governance left in the northern region of Antioquia” by the group of The Twelve Apostles.

“I want to turn that page and ensure the creation of a national agreement so that this era does not repeat itself. Differences between Colombians are not resolved by weeding out the other, but by building a safe and permanent path of coexistence. The methods of Santiago Uribe Vélez must not be repeated again in Colombia,” added Petro.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Cuban Regime Promises to “Resist the Imperial Onslaught” Following New Sanctions

Bruno Rodriguez describes the inclusion of Diaz-Canel among those affected by US financial restrictions as “vile”

Manuel Anido Cuesta alongside his mother, Lis Cuesta, and Diaz-Canel – all now sanctioned by the US – during a visit to the Vatican in 2023. / . / EFE

14ymedio, 5 June 2026 / It is less than a month since Miguel Diaz-Canel once again declared that the sanctions imposed by the US do not affect him because he holds no accounts or assets in the United States, so his reaction to Washington’s latest salvo came as no surprise. The president avoided personalising the issue and considered that the “illegitimate addition” of new names to the lists of those affected is “designed to reinforce the blockade measures and the scenario of conflict between Cuba and the United States.”

“The US president is making new threatening statements against Cuba and the Treasury Department has added new names of Cuban leaders, organisations and companies to an illegitimate sanctions list,” Diaz-Canel denounced on X. In his view, this attitude stems from a “political blindness” that “adds to the coercive measures applied in recent weeks (…), designed to harm the Cuban people” — a reference to the executive order signed by Donald Trump on 1 May that opens the door to sanctioning foreign companies that cooperate with Cuban state entities.

“The aggressiveness and perversity of the Yankee government will collide with our determination to face the worst scenarios and resist the imperial onslaught,” Diaz-Canel added.

“The aggressiveness and perversity of the Yankee government will collide with our determination to face the worst scenarios and resist the imperial onslaught”

His brief message followed a statement by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, who did allow himself to personalise the matter. “The vile inclusion of President Miguel Diaz-Canel, part of his family, as well as Cuban institutions, civil society organisations and companies on an illegitimate and unilateral list by the US government is the latest continue reading

demonstration of the American interventionist plan to present Cuba as a threat to United States national security,” he wrote on his X account.

In the same vein as the president, he devoted the second part of his post to a message of resistance. “Every US action aimed at constructing a scenario of conflict between the two countries is destined to fail. Every threat against Cuba’s independence and sovereignty will be met with greater unity and determination from our people,” he argued.

In addition to Diaz-Canel, the United States Treasury Department imposedfinancial sanctions this Thursday on the Ministry of the Armed Forces, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, the mining company La Victoria and the travel agency Amistur.

The measures extend to the president’s wife, Lis Cuesta, his stepson Manuel Anido Cuesta, Colonel Alejandro Castro Espin, son of former president Raul Castro, and the latter’s son, Raul Alejandro Castro Calis. Spared — and this is no minor detail — was Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, known as El Cangrejo, grandson of the elderly general and informal interlocutor with Marco Rubio himself in negotiations with the US that continue in spite of everything.

Diaz-Canel addressed this matter in an interview published today by elDiario.es, which sent its US correspondent to spend a few days in Havana and to whom the most newsworthy material in the piece is owed. The journalist, who explains in the introduction that the meeting with the president took place on Wednesday afternoon, asked him: “You were talking about the last round of sanctions, the one on 1 May. This very morning it happened to me at the hotel – I went to pay for something at the cafeteria and my credit card was declined.”

The Central Bank of Cuba had announced that day that Visa and Mastercard cards would not be usable from 6 June onwards, although hours later Fincimex warned that it had halted operations at 2 p.m. that same day and this newspaper confirmed on Thursday that shops were already refusing them. The journalist’s words make clear that the effect was immediate.

“You were talking about the last round of sanctions, the one on 1 May. This very morning it happened to me at the hotel – I went to pay for something at the cafeteria and my credit card was declined.”

Little that is new emerges from the rest of the lengthy conversation in which Diaz-Canel insists on how the sanctions imposed during Donald Trump’s first administration – maintained under Joe Biden and intensified in this second Republican term – have contributed to the worsening of the Cuban economy and, by extension, of its industry and services.

While acknowledging mistakes, the president insists that Cuba has held out under extreme conditions by drawing on science and innovation, claims that steps towards economic openness have been taken, and calls for the regime’s incompetence to be demonstrated by lifting sanctions. “If we are so incompetent, why blockade me? Why not let me collapse on my own? Because they have no interest in Cuba improving. That is a lie. They want to take possession of Cuba,” he added.

The two most noteworthy remarks come when Diaz-Canel is asked what will happen if there is a social uprising like that of 11 July 2021: “We have our programmes for each of those scenarios, to navigate them,” he says enigmatically, though he goes on to speak of little more than neighbourhood and recreational programmes to keep young people occupied. He also responds on the subject of talks with the US, which the journalist raises precisely when Diaz-Canel is insisting on his rhetoric of whole-people war and resistance.

“We could have a civilised dialogue of the kind the United States has with other countries it also regards as adversaries, regardless of ideological differences. Moreover, we could have trade relations, cultural, academic, sporting and scientific exchanges… There could be tourism on both sides without restriction,” he notes – but the condition remains the same: the system is not up for negotiation.

On the other side of the strait, Donald Trump – who had been absent from public life for a week – was again asked about Cuba. “The country is starving, it has no energy, no oil, no money, nothing,” he said, before declaring: “We are going to treat Cuba well and we have very good plans.” The president also maintained that his popularity among Cuban Americans is extremely high – 95% of them voted for him, he said – and that his expectations include their return to the island. “They are incredible people, energetic, entrepreneurial. Some of the wealthiest people in Miami are Cuban. I am going to take good care of them and I am going to allow them to return to their homeland,” he said.

Either way, the president again made any concrete steps conditional on what happens in the Middle East. “I like to do one thing at a time, and first we will deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran. And as soon as that is done, on the way back we will make a brief stop…” he said, before alluding to those good plans.

Translated by GH

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Hotel Companies Face Lawsuits from Cuba for Breaking Contracts Amid US Threats

Banco Sabadell will maintain its Havana office, as it only provides services to Spanish companies
Diaz-Canel invites Cubans abroad to take over management of the hotels

Banco Sabadell in Havana carries out only support activities for Spanish companies and does not consider itself affected.

14ymedio, Madrid, 5 June 2026 / With the break between the Spanish hotel companies and Gaviota now complete, experts are now considering whether legal problems will come from Havana. The possibility is plausible enough that the newspaper El Pais ran a headline this Friday reading Melia and Iberostar Face Lawsuits in Cuba for Abandoning Hotel Management, in a piece in which a lawyer sets out this angle – one that had already been raised previously.

Ignacio Aparicio, executive partner at Andersen and director of Cuban Desk, warns that Cuba has two options. “The first is the partners’ agreement. Hotels in Cuba are generally managed through joint ventures in which the Cuban state – through various entities – and the operator both participate. Faced with the unilateral withdrawal of the latter, Cuba could argue that it finds no legal or contractual basis for rescinding the contract, and will seek to resolve the dispute before third parties. A common mechanism for this is arbitration before the Cuba Chamber of Commerce, or before arbitration institutions abroad, a route Cuba rarely opts for,” he explains.

The expert believes the Cuban regime will argue that the threat of sanctions does not compel the breaking of contracts, since such sanctions have existed for decades, and he maintains that it is standard for contracts to contain a clause stating that regulatory changes in third countries do not constitute “force majeure enabling their rescission.”

“They will have to argue that they are leaving their contract for a strictly economic reason and not solely because of US sanctions”

Aparicio advises Spanish companies to focus their defence on demonstrating that, faced with “extraordinary and unforeseeable supervening circumstances,” there has been such a serious disruption to the balance of obligations under the contract as to make performance impossible. “They will have to argue that they are leaving their contract for a strictly economic reason and not solely because of US sanctions, since the absence of electricity supply, food, and air connectivity have been supervening circumstances that have left them without a business, frustrating the purpose continue reading

of the partnership,” he explains.

The newspaper notes that this was precisely the approach taken by Blue Diamond, which in its statement on leaving the island cited a “combination of causes” – such as the suspension of flights – rather than “actions taken by the United States Government.” However, both Melia and Iberostar still retain a considerable number of hotels each – 19 in the case of the former and 6 in the case of the latter – which makes invoking that argument somewhat more complex in their case.

The possibility of Cuban authorities suing what have been and continue to be their partners is, in any event, debatable. In an interview given by Miguel Diaz-Canel to the Spanish online outlet elDiario.es, the president strikes an almost affectionate tone towards the companies. “They have been investing in Cuba for a long time, they have worked hand in hand with our tourism entities, they are business people for whom we have great respect, and they are leaving against their will,” he remarked.

Diaz-Canel alludes to a mutual exchange and learning process that has lasted years and trained thousands of professionals, though he now opens the door to a change of hands in favour of Cuban entrepreneurs abroad. “I am certain that many will return to Cuba to continue the business, but it will not be easy given the stubbornness with which the US Administration has sought to hold back the development of Cuban tourism, knowing that it is a source of income,” he says – making no mention of the fact that many exiles have expressed their intention to invest if there is a political, economic, and above all legal change on the island.

The institution, quite relaxed, told the Catalan press that its activities have no connection whatsoever with Cuban state entities and that there is no intention of leaving

Meanwhile, in Spain companies continue to sort out their positions. One of the most closely watched was also Banco Sabadell, given that the executive order of 1 May explicitly targeted the financial sector. The institution, quite relaxed, told the Catalan press that its activities have no connection whatsoever with Cuban state entities and that there is no intention of leaving.

“Banco Sabadell has always complied with applicable legislation and international sanctions requirements, and will continue to do so,” it stated to ON Economia. Its Havana office has the sole function of supporting Spanish companies present on the island; it carries out no retail banking activity and takes no deposits from individual customers.

The institution has operated in Cuba through Financiera Iberoamericana, a company 50% owned jointly with the state-owned Banco Internacional de Comercio, which does not appear on the sanctions list. Even so, the bank says it will remain alert, as it must, to adapting should circumstances change. The group’s financial exposure in Cuba is minimal, as its 2025 accounts show. Its business on the island contributed barely 4.2 million euros.

The new situation has made no dent in the performance of the major Spanish corporations present on the island. On Thursday, Melia Hotels International closed the trading session up, having already gained 41.51% in the last quarter alone. Moreover, although its Cuba revenues were negligible in 2025 – at 12.7 million euros – that figure represents barely 0.6% of what the Balearic giant brings in overall.

Translated by GH.

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Putin Admits He Spoke with the US About Cuba Amid the Spectre of a Venezuela-Style Operation

The Russian president recalled that the Island is “a friendly country” for Moscow and that bilateral ties continue

“I would prefer not to comment further,” he added, before referring to the Russian tanker that arrived in Cuba in March with some 100,000 tonnes of crude oil. / EFE

14ymedio/Agencies, Madrid, 4 June 2026 / Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted on Thursday that Moscow has maintained contacts with Washington over Cuba, amid speculation about a possible US operation against the Island. The leader offered no details, but made clear that the matter had been discussed with the Donald Trump administration.

“Answering your question directly… You asked whether we had had contacts with the US administration on the Cuban question. Yes, there were,” Putin said during a meeting with senior executives of international news agencies on the sidelines of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, as reported by the Russian agency Interfax.

The Kremlin chief declined to go further. “I would prefer not to comment further,” he added, before referring to the Anatoly Kolodkin, the US-sanctioned Russian tanker that arrived in Cuba in March with some 100,000 tonnes of crude oil. “Cuba is a friendly country for us. Our relations have traditionally developed over decades. The US administration knows this. Our contacts with Cuba continue,” he said.

“The issue of US pressure on Cuba is present in our contacts with the Americans,” said Ryabkov on 1 June

The EFE agency placed those words in the context of a question about a possible military operation in Cuba similar to the one carried out by the US in Venezuela on 3 January. According to the wire, Putin admitted to having spoken with the American side about continue reading

that scenario, though his public response was limited to confirming the contacts and avoiding any specifics about their content.

The Russian president’s statement comes just days after his Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, declared that Washington’s pressure on Havana was present in conversations between Moscow and the US. “The issue of US pressure on Cuba is present in our contacts with the Americans,” Ryabkov said on 1 June.

The episode shows that Cuba has once again come to occupy a sensitive position on the board between Washington and Moscow. At the end of January, the White House declared that the actions of the Cuban government constituted an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security and foreign policy. The document accused Havana of collaborating with Russia, China, Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah, as well as harbouring foreign military and intelligence capabilities.

What most closely connects the Cuban case to a possible “Venezuela-style” operation is the charge against Raul Castro for his responsibility in the shooting down of the Brothers to the Rescue light aircraft in 1996

Since then, Washington has tightened sanctions, including pressure on fuel supplies to the Island. The effect has already been felt at sea. The Universal, another sanctioned tanker that was travelling to Cuba, interrupted its route from mid-April and remained adrift in the middle of the Atlantic, carrying nearly 270,000 barrels of diesel, according to maritime tracking data cited by Bloomberg. Its case reflects the caution of vessels linked to the Island’s energy supply, in contrast to the Anatoly Kolodkin, which did manage to offload Russian crude in March, with US permission.

The tension has also moved into the military, intelligence, and legal spheres. On 14 May, CIA Director John Ratcliffe travelled to Havana for an unusual meeting with senior Cuban officials. Two weeks later, on 29 May, another unusual meeting took place, this time between the head of US Southern Command, General Francis Donovan, and senior Cuban commanders at the perimeter of the Guantanamo Naval Base.

What most closely connects the Cuban case to a possible “Venezuela-style” operation is the charge against Raul Castro for his responsibility in the shooting down of the Brothers to the Rescue light aircraft in 1996. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office for the Southern District of Florida officially considers him a fugitive, after he failed to appear before the court despite the active arrest warrant.

Translated by GH.

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