Cuba vows ‘No Surrender’ as US tightens sanctions

Last Friday, more than five million people celebrated May Day with massive rallies across Cuba, showing their commitment to defending the homeland and its sovereignty. The very same day, the White House issued an executive order titled “Imposition of sanctions on those responsible for repression in Cuba and threats to U.S. national security and foreign policy.”

On May 2, in his speech at the International Solidarity Meeting with Cuba, the Cuban President Miguel Díaz‑Canel accused the United States of imposing a “collective punishment” on the island, which he characterized as part of a “genocidal aggression.” He vowed that Cuba will never surrender, even as Washington unveils a new executive order targeting Cuba’s energy, mining, defense and financial sectors. The Primary Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba called the measure “an act of direct and unilateral interference” designed to “collapse the Cuban economy and force a regime change.”

Díaz‑Canel warned that the threat of direct U.S. military action is “imminent,” while insisting that Cuba is fully prepared to respond. Reporting that the 32 Cuban combatants who fell in Venezuela had fought for 45 minutes against elite U.S. forces who had vastly superior technology and numbers, he continued, “Imagine what would happen in a military aggression against Cuba, where the example of those 32 would be multiplied by millions of Cubans.”

“We do not fear war. We do not want war. Cuba is a country of peace. But the U.S. government speaks of war every day and raises its threatening rhetoric against Cuba,” he said. “And here there will be neither surprise nor defeat.”

On May 6, the International Relations Commission of Cuba’s National Assembly of People’s Power issued a formal declaration rejecting the new Executive Order of the president of the United States. According to the commission, more than six million Cubans — 81% of those over 16 years of age — have signed the “Firma por la Patria” (Signature for the Homeland) campaign in support of independence, the socialist revolution and the revolutionary government. The Cuban legislators stressed that their people “will continue defending the political system that it sovereignly recognizes in the Constitution, approved by universal referendum by the vast majority of the Cuban people.” The commission called on the parliamentarians of the world to raise their voices to halt the growing military threat and the economic and energy siege of the United States government against Cuba.