The US has become a power that knows only how to destroy. In the Ramón González Coro maternity hospital in Havana, Cuba, I saw what that looks like in human terms.
Maria lies on a hospital bed, wrapped in a dark blue blanket, two friends at her side. She is 50, with terminal cervical cancer, and nothing but praise for her doctors. But she is also a victim of a decades-long US siege, drastically intensified by Donald Trump’s decision earlier this year to threaten tariffs against countries that deliver fuel to Cuba. The result has been no fuel imports for three months, meaning the island is running out of diesel and fuel reserves. The electricity grid is collapsing and life is grinding to a halt.
Even getting to hospital became a struggle as fuel prices soared. “In the hospital itself, sometimes they don’t have all the facilities for the doctor to do their job properly,” she tells me. “No matter how much they want to help you, there are things beyond their control.”
The hospital cannot carry out crucial tests. It has no tranexamic acid, a basic drug used to prevent bleeding. Maria is bleeding so heavily that she has developed anaemia. When I tell her that Trump claims sanctions are designed to help the Cuban people, she calls it “outrageous”.
Dr Lilian Peruyera describes the wider consequences. Medical staff cannot afford the journey to work, leaving wards understaffed. Women are giving birth at home. Premature births are rising. Illnesses are being detected too late. When I ask Peruyera what message she has for citizens in the west, she begins to cry. “That we Cubans want to be happy, I think that’s the most important thing,” she says. “There’s no other message. I believe we have a right to dignity, to live as human beings.”
Cuba’s healthcare system has long been the pride of its revolution, helping a poor Caribbean country achieve life expectancy comparable to wealthy western nations and one of the world’s lowest infant mortality rates. Last year, as renewed sanctions took hold, that rate was reported to have doubled since 2018.
US missiles are not raining down on Havana. But what I witnessed should still be understood as warfare. While I was there, the city was plunged into darkness – the second national blackout in less than a week. Families cooked on charcoal stoves. Rubbish piled up in the streets, flies swarming, because there is not the fuel for collection. Water pumping systems were failing. Trump claimed he wanted “to promote a stable, prosperous and free country for the Cuban people”. In reality, this has always been a war on those people.
The embargo, imposed over six decades, was designed to strangle the revolution. Once-grand buildings have crumbled because materials – cement, steel, machinery – are so difficult to obtain. Taxi drivers still rely on brightly coloured 1950s Fords, Chevrolets and Cadillacs. “We’re living in the 21st century,” one tells me. “But it feels like the 19th.”
There was a brief moment of hope when President Barack Obama eased restrictions, boosting tourism and economic activity. Trump reversed that in his first term. And now, after cutting off oil supplies via Venezuela and Mexico earlier this year, he has tightened the vice further. This island, less than 100 miles from the US coast, is being suffocated.
None of this is in the service of democracy. Trump has openly boasted that he could “have the honour of taking Cuba”, adding: “Whether I free it, take it – think I could do anything I want with it.”
Tourism had become a lifeline, but now visitor numbers are collapsing, stripping away one of the country’s main sources of hard currency. Flights are being cancelled. Hotels are closing. People are exhausted, ground down, losing hope. “It’s undeniable that the government’s popularity is at an all-time low,” says Daniel, a young film-maker. “In that sense, the sanctions are succeeding.” He has his own criticisms of the Cuban state, but rejects the claim that the US acts in Cubans’ interests. “If they did, they would not have had an embargo for 60-plus years, and they would certainly not have an oil blockade happening right now, which is costing human lives.”
Last summer I walked through Baghdad, past streets lined with images of the dead, as Iraqis told me, matter-of-factly, that their country had been destroyed. Weeks later I was in the West Bank, speaking with Palestinians being driven from their homes by an Israeli army that is armed by the US. Twenty miles away, they had erased Gaza from the Earth, facilitated by the US. Now, American missiles are falling on Iran in an illegal war that began with the mass killing of schoolgirls. Across the world, the US has become synonymous with destruction.
Trump believes that brute force can reverse the decline of US power, that this will make the world fear Washington, restoring authority. Instead, it is fuelling anger and resentment on a global scale. The world has noted that the US knows how to destroy – Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Palestine and Cuba stand as stark examples of what US power now delivers. The world is drawing its conclusions – and looking for a way out.
How Cuban society endures the coming months remains uncertain. What is clear is that the era of US hegemony is entering a brutal, disfigured end.
