The US is killing Cuba softly while the international community keeps mum

In Iran there is bleeding and destruction, so the war must be real.

On 28 February 2026, Israel and the US attacked Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Casualties, military and civilian, have continued to rise since then, as has the destruction of military and civilian infrastructure.

The UN Security Council held an emergency session the same day and again on 12 March 2026 and called for a de-escalation of the war, with some members, especially China and Russia, condemning the attack by Israel and the US, while the others largely attacked Iran.

In the chokehold on Cuba, there is no visible bleeding and destruction; therefore, is there no war?

Almost a month earlier, on 3 January 2026, the US had attacked Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. The deputy president of Venezuela assumed the leadership of the country with US involvement, and the country has largely remained peaceful and is regrouping from political and economic stagnation.

The country that has been largely adversely affected by this attack is Cuba. According to the Cuban government, 32 Cubans died in this attack. The US immediately stopped the flow of oil from Venezuela to Cuba, oil on which Cuba depended for power generation and overall transport and logistics. President Trump then issued an executive order threatening US action against any other country that would supply oil to Cuba.

With no oil, power generation has ceased or has been significantly curtailed, cutting power to all parts of Cuban society, affecting especially health facilities, the transport of food and tourism, which is the country’s biggest foreign exchange earner.

An economy already reeling from decades of US economic embargo has virtually come to a standstill. This is causing significant suffering to Cubans, and the impact on medical facilities and transport of medicines and drugs is probably resulting in many deaths.

Fighting a war without firing a shot

The US has practically declared war on Cuba, although there is no destroyed infrastructure and no stretchers carrying the bleeding dead and maimed to show on TV and social media.

Cuba is facing a humanitarian crisis. Canada and Mexico are providing assistance to alleviate this humanitarian crisis without addressing its cause. The UN Security Council has not held any meetings to discuss this. Cuba finds itself alone amid a cowering international community that is afraid of President Trump, who is wielding the economic and military might of the US against a defenseless, and with regard to the US, harmless, vulnerable, tiny neighbour. The international community’s ignoring of the US war on Cuba indicates that it does not consider it in the bigger scheme of things.

Cuba will have to toe the line and kowtow to the US regardless of its sovereignty. It is a matter of time for it to capitulate.

Larger ramifications

The international community could see this as affecting only Cuba, but the US, through President Trump’s executive order prescribing countries’ relationships with one another is undermining their sovereignty as well.

The war that may be understood to be against a dispensable country has ramifications for the rest of the international community. To quote Pastor Niemöller: “When they came for the communists, I did not speak out, because I was not a communist.”

It is not only Cuba that will have to kowtow to President Trump and his administration; he will demand that the rest of the international community do so too, regardless of their sovereignty.

What threat does Cuba pose to the US?

The attack on Iran is rationalised with the nuclear programme, the recent brutal response to protests in the country, historic animosity towards Israel and the US, its human rights record, especially the treatment of dissidents and women.

The main rationale for the attack on Cuba is that it is a one-party socialist country governed by a communist party that does not allow opposition and opposition parties. It poses no threat to its neighbours, especially the economically and militarily mighty US, and despite the stranglehold by the US and its impact on the country, Cuba has not experienced the internal upheaval similar to the recent one in Iran.

The US is setting a dangerous precedent

If a socialist and communist country such as China were to in future be economically and militarily as powerful as the US is today, would it be acceptable for it to insist that other countries be socialist and communist like it? Is the fear of a rising China predicated on fear that it will insist on propagating its political and economic ideology to those who had propagated their own? Is it the fear that they are viable and therefore attractive options to the dominant political and economic ideology?

Otherwise, any country that has the characteristics – be it bad leadership, nuclear ambitions, suppression of opposition, economic and political ideology etc. – that justify the US war on Cuba should be treated in the same way. Will the international community accept that “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander”? DM

Abel Sithole holds a master’s degree in International Relations from Stellenbosch University as well as master’s degrees in Business Administration and Futures Studies.