If Cuba falls, the Global South is to blame, too

As the United States tightens the screws, Cuba’s supposed allies respond with nothing but empty gestures and selective solidarity.Al Jazeera columnist.Published On 29 Jan 2026On Tuesday, United States President Donald Trump had a good laugh with members of the press in the US state of Iowa as he issued a rather serious decree regarding the short-term future of Cuba: “Cuba will be failing pretty soon. Cuba is really a nation that’s very close to failing.”To be sure, this is not the first time that Trump has predicted the downfall of the Caribbean island nation, which the US has effectively been trying to destroy for no fewer than 67 years – ever since the triumph in 1959 of Cuba’s communist revolution that overthrew the brutal right-wing dictator and US buddy Fulgencio Batista.This time around, however, the threat carries a bit more weight in light of the Trump administration’s abduction earlier this month of Nicolas Maduro, the leftist president of Venezuela.To date, the US has not been held accountable for this utterly illegal and patently batty act, which Trump on Tuesday invoked as alleged proof of Cuba’s impending demise: “You know, they got their money from Venezuela. They got the oil from Venezuela. They are not getting that any more.”One would hope, then, that other countries – particularly the self-declared allies of Cuba – might step up to defend the island against US predations or at least credibly register their opposition to imperial impunity.Instead, all Cuba has really gotten are some perfunctory professions of support – such as from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who, like her ostensibly leftist predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has perfected the art of pretending to counter US machinations while doing exactly what the gringos want.