Why Cuba?

By Florencia Lagos Neumann on February 22, 2026

The United States, the world’s largest military power, has lost its hegemony. And there is nothing more dangerous than a power that loses its control over the planet.

Capitalism is in crisis as a result of the collapse of the speculative financial system and its real basis: the dollar. Unlike the powers that make up the BRICS, whose currencies have real material backing, the dollar does not.

BRICS is a bloc made up of countries from the African, Eurasian, and Latin American continents. It favors economic exchange through the local currencies of its members. BRICS covers more than a third of the world’s surface area and accounts for around 49.5% of the world’s population.

The association accounts for around 40% of global GDP, which is higher than that of the G7 (France, the US, Canada, Japan, the UK, Italy, and Germany), which stands at around 30%. It also accounts for approximately 26% of world trade.

The United States feels threatened by the rise of BRICS, a group of emerging powers and alliances. It is clear that we are in the midst of an intersystemic transition, a new order of powers. Some experts describe this as the most dangerous moment in the history of the international system.

Faced with the loss of its global hegemony, the US government resorts to military force to resolve conflicts. The international architecture that governs us today does not respond to the historical moment we are living in. The genocide against Palestine and Cuba, at no cost to the aggressors, is proof of this.

It is a fact that the fate of humanity is being played out in the Middle East and the Caribbean.

In view of this, the United States is seeking refuge in what it calls its “backyard”: Latin America and the Caribbean. For this reason, it is reviving the Monroe Doctrine, whose fundamental principle is “America for Americans.”

Why Cuba?

As René Gonzales Barrios, author, historian, and director of the Fidel Castro Center, pointed out in the article “Sinking Cuba” in the Granma newspaper: “Because of its geographical position and the economic, political, and military importance of its possession, from the very beginning of the United States, Cuba has been a longed-for and precious jewel for successive governments in the north.”

The largest of the Antilles is the gateway to Latin America and the Caribbean. If the United States were to subjugate Cuba, it could control the region’s maritime circuit, and therefore the main route for commercial exchange.

The aim would be to expel China and Russia from the Latin American continent and recover what the United States considers its territory.

The crisis of the capitalist system has exacerbated the contradiction between the Western axis, comprising the NATO countries, and the Eurasian axis, comprising China and Russia.

But taking over Cuba has not been an easy task for the Northern Empire. For more than six decades, it has imposed a commercial and financial blockade that seeks to suffocate the island, with the aim of inflicting pain on its population so that the people themselves will bring about a change in the political system in line with US interests.

Despite the sanctions, Cuba has developed a socialist system and achieved substantial progress in education, health, science, culture, and sports. The Cuban people and their leaders throughout history have demonstrated stoicism, dignity, and resilience.

The director of the Fidel Castro Center, René Gonzales, recalled: “President Theodore Roosevelt, hailed today by Miami annexationists as the Liberator of Cuba, said in September 1906, during the second U.S. military intervention on the island: ‘I am so angry with that infernal little Cuban republic that I would like to wipe its people off the face of the earth. This was the same thought expressed by businessman Cyrus Duvall, as reported by the Washington Post on August 13, 1900: ‘If only the island could be sunk for half an hour (…) If all living things could be removed and the land purified by fire and water, and repopulated with Americans, then it would be a paradise on earth.’

The policy of hatred and extermination towards Cuba has been in existence for more than two centuries. Now Trump is intensifying the plan of genocide against the island and enforcing a naval blockade that prevents the entry of oil.

The consequences are alarming, with children in hospitals who could die as a result of the lack of electricity and medical supplies, and universities and schools affected by the murderous measure of the US government.

Despite this, the Cuban people are resisting. However, today more than ever, they need the solidarity of the peoples of the world who owe so much to the Cuban Revolution.

In this sense, the role that the BRICS countries can play is decisive. Cuba is an associate country, and defending the right of the Greater Antilles to exist is defending the basic principles of a civilized world.

At some point in their histories, all countries in the world can attest to having been helped by Cuban doctors and teachers. Today it is our turn: the fate of humanity is at stake in Cuba.

Source: El Ciudadano, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English