By Johana Tablada on May 24, 2025
Mike Hammer in Miami
Below is an almost exhaustive analysis of the main lies, half-truths, and inconsistencies in the press conference given by Mike Hammer, head of mission at the US Embassy in Cuba, on May 22, 2025, in Miami (with an air of intervention), with an emphasis on the following elements:
- Falsehoods and half-truths in the economic diagnosis
“The revolution has failed. There is no electricity, fuel, food, or medicine. And this has nothing to do with any US policy.”
- False!!!: The unilateral coercive measures imposed by the US against Cuba—known as the blockade—have a direct and severe impact on access to financing, technology, supplies, and medicines, and are recognized even by the UN as the main obstacle to Cuban development.
- Deliberate omission: It fails to mention that the blockade prohibits international banking transactions with Cuba, penalizes ships that dock in Cuban ports, and hinders the purchase of fuel, among hundreds of other coercive measures designed to destabilize and dominate Cuba.
- Manipulation: While it is true that there is an economic crisis, blaming the Cuban government alone is a simplification that ignores the multidimensional economic, financial, and commercial war imposed by Washington for more than six decades.
- Political manipulation and attempt to whitewash interference
“I am going out to meet with the people as I did in other countries. There is nothing in the Vienna Convention that prevents me from doing so.”
- Deceptive: The Vienna Convention expressly prohibits interference in the internal affairs of the receiving country (Art. 41), which includes systematic contacts with the opposition or support for destabilizing actors.
- Obvious hypocrisy: If a Cuban diplomat made similar tours in the US, meeting with opponents and groups critical of the Biden or Trump administration, he would be declared persona non grata and expelled.
- Implicit lie: Claiming that these meetings are “with anyone” and “without interference” masks a strategy of soft destabilization commonly used in regime change operations.
- Whitewashing of destabilizing figures
“I visit artists, young people, and relatives of those they call ‘political prisoners…’ (people they have encouraged to break the law).”
- Discursive manipulation: Figures directly or indirectly financed by the US are presented as victims of the “regime,” concealing the fact that they have openly called for subversion, sabotage, or violent acts.
- Lie by omission: It does not acknowledge that several of these figures have previous criminal records or have committed crimes even outside the political sphere.
- Flagrant lie about the blockade
“The embargo allows food and medicine.”
- False in practice: Although there are legal exceptions, the system of licenses, financial persecution, and fear of secondary sanctions prevents banks, shipping companies, and businesses from freely selling to Cuba, even food or medicine.
- Cynical: Minimizes the effects of a coercive policy that includes sanctions on third countries, persecution of transactions, and energy suffocation.
- Diplomatic inconsistency and propaganda
“The Trump administration’s policy is clear: tough policy against the regime, support for the people.”
- Dangerous contradiction: “Support for the people” includes sanctions that threaten the livelihoods of the population and cause and exacerbate the daily hardships of the Cuban people for political purposes.
- Rhetorical falsehood: There is no such thing as “support for the people” when remittances and travel are blocked, consulates are closed, family reunification is made difficult, and trade with Cuba is criminalized.
- Encouraging irregular migration
“All Cubans tell me they want to come to the US; they love our culture.”
- Self-serving narrative: Exaggerates the perception of migration as if it were a widespread desire, rather than the result of a crisis induced by US suffocation and disinformation measures.
- Selective attraction strategy: The US has actively encouraged migration to erode the socialist project, generating a brain drain and putting pressure on the political system.
- Hypocrisy on the issue of the press
“There is no freedom of the press in Cuba; the independent media tell the truth.”
- Gross manipulation: Many of the “independent media” are directly funded by the US or its agencies such as the NED and USAID, making them extensions of US foreign policy, not a free press. Recently, all of them were reconnected to USAID and NED funding. The NED alone received $6.6 million for projects against Cuba, the highest amount in the region.
- Silence on repression in the US: It does not mention the repression and censorship of progressive or pro-Cuba media on digital platforms and traditional US media.
Conclusion
Mike Hammer’s intervention was not a neutral press conference, but a carefully designed political communication operation to:
- Install a failed state discourse on Cuba,
- Legitimize diplomatic interference as “solidarity,”
- Whitewash US sanctions and absolve itself of responsibility for the blockade that has been intensified since January 20
- Reinforce figures of the Washington-funded counterrevolution as legitimate spokespersons,
- Position the Trump administration and Marco Rubio as “allies of the Cuban people.”
All this under a propaganda framework that disregards the basic principles of international law and respect for sovereignty.
Johana Tablada is the Deputy Director General of the US Department of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Source: Cubadebate, translation, Resumen Latinoamericano – English
