Note: English subtitles on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqlQhqvNnqM
🇨🇺 🎙️ In this episode of Cuba Analysis podcast, Helen Yaffe and Nina Blodau speak with Cuba’s Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, about life under the US blockade. He details the 2026 escalation of US economic warfare: new executive orders, an oil siege 🛢️🚫, and expanded sanctions. The Minister highlights the doubled infant mortality rate, 7,000 blocked shipping containers 🚢🔒, and open #usa military threats. Rejecting claims that Cuba threatens US security, he denounces fabrications by Secretary of State #MarcoRubio and reflects on Cuba’s resilience and a future based on dialogue and respect for sovereignty.
Alongside economic warfare, the US government has openly threatened a military attack. The Minister confirms that Cubans take these threats seriously and warns that any US military action would result in a bloodbath on both sides, with devastating consequences for the wider Caribbean. Rodríguez Parrilla rejects outright the labelling of Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism and as a threat to US national security. He points to lies and fabrications by US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and argues that only ‘a small group of corrupt politicians’ would benefit from the destruction of Cuba.

After almost seven decades of US attempts to force political change in Cuba, why has the policy failed? The Minister reflects on Cuba’s resilience and on the possibility of a future based on dialogue, sovereignty, mutual respect and cooperation between neighbours.

This episode of Cuba Analysis podcast was produced in collaboration with Belly of the Beast Cuba: https://www.bellyofthebeastcuba.com/

Interview with Professor Isaac Saney on the US State Department's anti-Cuba report and its implications.

In this episode of the Cuba Analysis Podcast, co-hosts Helen Yaffe and Nina Blodau speak with Professor Isaac Saney, a Black Studies and Cuba specialist, historian, professor at Dalhousie University, author of two books about Cuba, and spokesperson for the Canadian Network on Cuba, which is among many groups named in the new US State Department report ‘Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism’.

Professor Saney breaks down the 100-page report which, despite lacking evidence, depicts Cuba as a global subversive force guiding the US and international left over decades. Saney explains that the objectives of this McCarthyite document are to justify the genocidal US blockade and lay the groundwork for future military aggression, as well as to revive Cold War-era repression of the left domestically and beyond.

We discuss the suffocating US sanctions imposed in 2026, their impact on Cuba’s economy and the population’s access to essential goods, and the muted international response. Professor Saney points out that 136 countries voted against the US blockade at the UN, despite US pressure, although Canada and several EU countries shamefully abstained.

We also talk about Cuba’s historic contribution to African liberation struggles, with a focus on Cuba’s support of the struggle for Angolan independence and the defeat of the invading South African army, which contributed to the end of Apartheid – the focus of Isaac’s book, Cuba, Africa, and Apartheid's End. This historic contribution is ignored in the State Department report, which Saney describes as a white supremacist.

Saney concludes by calling for more concrete international solidarity with Cuba, arguing that defending Cuban sovereignty, self-determination and socialist development, is also a defence of international law, opposition to normalisation of genocide and resistance to imperialism.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQG8E8_UsDo

In this episode of the Cuba Analysis Podcast, Helen Yaffe and Nina Blodau speak to radical journalist and filmmaker Abby Martin from The Empire Files about the intensifying US war on Cuba, the human cost of the decades-long blockade, political consciousness and how Cuba has resisted US imperialism. Abby tells us about her first experience of visiting Cuba and, more recently, of interviewing Cuban President Miguel Diaz Canel for the new documentary Cuba After Castro, which undermines US propaganda aimed at manufacturing consent for an attack. Abby draws the connections between Cuba, Palestine, and Venezuela, and underscores the importance of solidarity for all those struggling against US imperialism, including domestically.
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🇨🇺 #CubaAnalysis #CubaPodcast #CubaSolidarity #Cuba #CubaHistory #CubaStudies #AbbyMartin #TheEmpireFiles ‪@EmpireFiles‬