By Isaac Saney on August 22, 2026 from Halifax Nova Scotia
foto: Aaron Epp
Prime Minister Mark Carney has unequivocally rejected the brazen demand emerging from the recently collapsed Canada–United States trade negotiations: the stipulation that Washington should determine with whom Canada is permitted to trade. Carney declared that: “We cannot accept what they have offered and we will not give what they have asked.”
That declaration raises a fundamental question: if Canada will not accept Washington dictating who Canada can trade with, why does Ottawa continue to tolerate the application of U.S. sanctions and coercive economic measures against Canadian businesses, citizens, and institutions engaged with Cuba?
It is long past time for Canada to apply the principle of economic sovereignty consistently.
For decades, Canada has maintained important economic, commercial, cultural, and people-to-people relations with Cuba. Yet Washington’s escalating campaign of economic coercion has inflicted enormous damage on those longstanding ties. The U.S. blockade and its extraterritorial sanctions have made it increasingly difficult for Canadian companies to conduct legitimate business with Cuba, disrupted tourism, constrained financial transactions, and imposed hardships on thousands of Canadians and Cuban-Canadians whose families and communities remain connected to the island.
Ottawa has too often responded with statements of principle while failing to take the concrete measures necessary to defend Canadian sovereignty.
Canada has failed to adequately protect Canadian businesses and investments from the extraterritorial reach of U.S. sanctions. It has failed to adequately defend thousands of Canadians and Cuban-Canadians whose families are directly affected by Washington’s economic siege. And it has failed to adequately protect Canadian tourism, trade, investment, and commercial interests from a policy imposed by a foreign government.
This contradiction can no longer be sustained. If Canada genuinely believes in multilateralism, international law, national sovereignty, peaceful coexistence, and human dignity, then Ottawa must reject the U.S. economic war against Cuba with the same clarity with which it has rejected Washington’s attempt to dictate Canada’s trading relationships.
The issue is not whether Canada agrees with the Cuban government. The issue is whether one country should be permitted to use its economic power to dictate the legitimate foreign trade and international relations of another sovereign state—and whether Canada will permit that coercion to undermine its own sovereignty.
Canada should answer unequivocally: No.
Canada should actively defend Canadian companies, financial institutions, organizations, and citizens from the extraterritorial application of U.S. sanctions. And Ottawa should provide meaningful humanitarian and economic assistance to Cuba—including urgently needed fuel, food, medicines, and medical supplies—to help alleviate the devastating consequences of Washington’s economic siege.
The U.S. blockade of Cuba should be openly condemned as illegal, unjust, and profoundly harmful to the Cuban people. Canada must also make clear that economic coercion must not become a prelude to military aggression. Any threat or act of military intervention against Cuba must be opposed through every available diplomatic and international mechanism.
Ottawa should take immediate action to:
Deepen and defend economic, commercial, academic, cultural, and people-to-people exchanges between Canada and Cuba, rather than allowing Washington’s coercive policies to dictate the character and extent of Canada’s relations with Havana.
Fully enforce the Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act (FEMA) and use every available legal mechanism to protect Canadian corporations and other Canadian interests conducting legitimate business with Cuba from the extraterritorial application of U.S. sanctions.
Lift the Government of Canada’s advisory against non-essential travel to Cuba and work to expand opportunities for Canadian tourism, trade, investment, cultural exchange, and other forms of peaceful engagement with the island.
Reaffirm Canada’s historic opposition to the U.S. embargo against Cuba at the United Nations and support the annual UN General Assembly resolution calling for an end to the U.S. economic, commercial, and financial embargo against Cuba.
Provide substantial humanitarian assistance to Cuba, particularly fuel, food, medicines, medical supplies, and other essential goods, while ensuring that Canadian assistance reaches the Cuban people without becoming an instrument of political interference.
Oppose any threat or act of military aggression against Cuba and insist that Cuba’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and right to determine its own political and economic system be respected.
Work with other governments committed to multilateralism and international law to challenge the normalization of unilateral coercive economic measures and defend the right of sovereign states to maintain peaceful and mutually beneficial relations with one another.
This is not simply a question of Canada’s relationship with Cuba. It is a test of Canadian sovereignty. Carney stated that Canada cannot accept a world in which Washington determines whom Canadians may trade with. But that principle must extend beyond the immediate Canada–U.S. trade dispute. Canadian sovereignty cannot be defended selectively. If Ottawa rejects the principle that the United States can dictate Canada’s trading relationships with other countries, then it must reject that principle wherever it is applied—including in relation to Cuba.
The choice before Ottawa is no longer ambiguous. Canada can stand with international law, multilateralism, peace, sovereignty, human dignity, and the right of peoples to determine their own future. Or it can continue accommodating an economic war that has inflicted profound suffering on the Cuban people while undermining Canada’s own economic interests and sovereign decision-making.
Canada must break with Washington’s economic war against Cuba.
Isaac Saney is a Professor and Cuba and Black Studies Specialist in Black African Diaspora Studies and History, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. He is also a member of the executive of the Canadian Network On Cuba.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English