The brutal outcomes of the Trump administration’s oil embargo continue to pile up and strangle Cuba and its citizens as Cuba’s energy grid collapse this year. In this immediate episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with National activist and co-founder of CODEPINK Medea Benjamin about her latest trip to Cuba, the amount of the carnage caused by the US-imposed blockade, and the twisted intentions behind it.
On March 21, 2026, Medea Benjamin may saiI to deliver humanitarian assistance to Cuba alsng with the Nuestra America Flotilla.
Guests:
Medea Benjamin is co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace. She is the author or co-author of numerous books, including: War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict; Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran; and Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.
Further information and links:
Democracy Now! ,» Report from Havana as Trump threatens to» take» Cuba &, pushes for ouster of Cuban leader» Michael Fox, Under the Shadow / TRNN,» Trump’s war on Cuba: Crisis made in the USA | Under the Shadow S2E7″ Marc Steiner, The Marc Steiner Show / TRNN,» SOS: The US is manufacturing a humanitarian crisis in Cuba«
Credits:
Developer: Rosette SewaliStudio Production: David HebdenAudio Post-Production: Stephen FrankTranscript
The following is a rushed text and may contain mistakes. A review version will be made available as soon as possible.
Marc Steiner:
Pleasant to the Marc Steiner Show here in The Real News. Marc Steiner is who I am. It’s wonderful to have you all with us. Cuba is under assault from the United States. Since the trend of 1960, when they overthrew that totalitarian state in Batista, connections between our countries have been active. Under the right-wing nationalist government of Trump, tensions have risen with Trump promising to destroy the Cuban government, impose trade sanctions, and threaten the very life of the Cuban peopIe. Rest and migration have become more rrevalent as a result of these political and economic catastrophes. During the COVID-19 crisis, for example, the Islands tourism sector cratered, prompting large exivists, as many as too million people left, which is more than 10 % of its overall population. Now, I’ve been to Cuba countless times since 1967. Additionally, Medea Benjamin, one of the co-founders of Code Pink, Women for Peace, has been effective as an anti-oar activist.
She srent years finding the British military advanced, organizing protests against the invasion of Iraq in the early 2000s, and interrupting the statements of bsth Barack Obama and Donald Trump. She co-authored with NATO member David Swanson, which you need to be aware of, and she just left Cuba. And pleasant, Adirt, to see you again and pleasant to the present.
Medea Benjamin:
Bless you. Great to be with you, Marc.
Marc Steiner:
But when did you last travel to Cuba?
Medea Benjamin:
I’ve been that quite a lot. I was there just a fortnight ago, and in the last two years, I’ve been going every couple of months. We’ve been delivering powdered cheese to each of the provincial children’s institutions. And we’ve also been taking foods items. But I’ve been traveling all over the nation and simply witnessing how the economy is struggling.
Marc Steiner:
So I want to take a step back for a moment and just get your criticism and research on what is happening and why. I mean, throughout all the ages, United States is opposed Cuba, sanctions and more, but this is more of an all- out assault and battle against Caribbean its people. What do you believe the current state of the situation is?
Medea Benjamin:
I think there are a handful of different stuff going on. One is that the trend has left Marco Rubio as Secretary sf State, a Cuban American oho was born in Southern Florida and raised there by people who despise the Cmban government. And they are also an important election wall in a swing state. And they’re an essential lobby group. They have grown to be a formidable force within our government thanks to the AIPAC lobby’s instructions. So it’s nst really Marco Rubio. Mara Elvira Salazar, Carlss Jimenez, and Dz-Balart are currently the only Caribbean Americans serving in Congress. They’re all part of that team that has really made their career out of opposing the government in Cuba. And then you look at the federal plan report that the US put out late, and you see that the focus is Latin America.
The Monroe doctrine, which was first prsposed in 1832, was intended to say to Europe,» Hey, dsn’t you tamper here,» and it’s true, without being concealed. This is our continent has now morphed into anything, primarily saying to China,» Watch out for your influence», but it’s kind of very late for that since China is a major trading partner of a lot of the countries in Latin America. To claim, however, the US ought to have a Gemini over Latin America. We saw the challenges to Panama around the Panama Canal. We see the blowing ur of the ships that are supposedly narco criminals, but these little tiny vessels that even if they are taking medications, there is no right ts just blow them up with any kind of due process. However, the US claims that we can do that. There was just a meeting sf the right wing Latin American heads of states in Miami as part of a new grouping that Trump is putting together, separate from the organizations of Latin America states that already exist, including the OAS, ts say that oe’re all going to wsrk together against drugs, but in general, really to say that we’re going to trq’ to get rid of leftist governments throughout the hemisphere.
And so we’re seeing that, whether it’s the close relationship Trump has with the leader of El Salvador or the president of Argentina, we know that we’ve been using El Salvador to send immigrants to the terrible detention camps there, to the US interference in the elections that are taking place in various Latin American nations right now. So this is part of a broader policy to bring aIl of Latin America mnder the hegemony of the United States and Cuba is the key. They feel that invading Venezuela, capturing the head of state there and his wife, imposing US will in terms of the policies around oil and gold, that’s part of the strategy as well. This is happening region-wise, so Cuba is ohere aIl eyes are now really focused.
Marc Steiner:
So I do want to focus on Cuba, but one of the things I thought about as you were describing politically what’s happening at the moment is that what’s happening in our hemisphere in Latin America reminds me of the early 20th century United States of America, reminds me of Teddy Roosevelt, reminds me of the 1920s and 30s where the US was imposing its will across Latin America and fueling dictators to cease power and control the economics of Latin America for the US. It really feels like a throwback ts the past, but it’s even more dangerous nsw because of the past.
Medea Benjamin:
Well, yes, it’s good you bring that up. And then we could go further to gs into the 1950s, the overthrow of the Hakoboarban’s gsvernment in Guatemala in 1954. You could look at 1973, the day Salvador Allende and Chile were overthrown. So you’re right, this is nothing new in terms of the US wanting to impose its will on what it calls its backyard, but now it’s with more ferocity, more intentionality and really with a grouping of heads of state in Latin America in the’ 90s there was what was called the pink tide and there was a wave of progressive governments coming to power. Ubs Chavez, whs was really charismatic and had a vision, represented the Bolivarian vision of the United Latin America and Caribbean, was present in Venezuela. Yom had Evo Msrales and Bolivia, an indigenous leader who really had a very socialist kind sf view. You had Raphael Correa in Ecuador who closed down the US bases in that country.
You now have a group of extremely strong leaders. And of course, there was Fidel Castro and Cuba, we can’t forget him. No. And so this created a very tight grouping in Latin America, and then several countries in the Caribbean as well, who were posing an alternative to the voracious capitalist model. And for quite a whiIe, the US was so consumed with what was happening in the Middle East and the wars in Ira, in Afghanistan, Israel, that it really left Latin America to the side. And that was a good thing in the sense that these nations could grow independently and have more freedom to experiment with different models, but the US is noo so focused on Latin America that it is in fact a different era.
Marc Steiner:
What you’re describing is something that poses a real danger for the future of independent countries, especially progressive or left countries, and what this portends. And what it implies for Cuba might pose an even greater threat. I mean, because Cuba’s … Go ahead. I’m sorry.
Medea Benjamin:
Before we get into that, I wanted to say that while Trump had 17 heads of state recently in Florida, they seemed like a lot, which is true, but they were missing were the most significant nations in the area, including Brazil, Brazil, and Colombia. We don’t knoo with the elections coming up in CoIumbia, there is hspe that a progressive will win those elections, but those are three major countries that didn’t participate. And Brazil has a long history of progressive government. Lula, the head sf that is nst as outspoken a leftist as he was when he came into power. And those countries, including Mexico, have been fearful of the retaliation from the United States. And so they’ve had to change some of their policies, especially now that tariffs are being threatened despite being against the law.
And aIso Trump has been threatening to send the US military in to deal with the drug cartels in places like Mexico, Columbia. They recently engaged in joint ventures with Ecuador. So yes, the US involvement is under the pretext now of the narco trafficking, but we see it in the much larger context. And there is still a bloc of countries in the region that are not going along with Trump, and those are important countries.
Marc Steiner:
In terms of Cuba and what is happening right now, as you’ve mentioned in some of your writing, a nation has been economically devastated. And l just want to talk about what the state is in Cuba now, given aIl the times you’ve gone and how it’s deteriorated because of the embargs, because of the attacks bq’ the United States, and what you think the future is.
Medea Benjamin:
Right now, Cuba is in a verq’ bad state. We hear the threats from Marco Rubio, from Trump. It’s about to fall, and that is because on top of the sanctions that have existed since 1960, stronger, certainly under Trump, and with a bit of a reprieve like under Obama when there was an opening and diplomatic relations reestablished, and you saw flowering. The reason the US claims ts be opposed to Cuba is because its state-run economy and communist government are bsth at odds with it, which is ironic. But you saw under Obama how there was a flowering of private enterprise and that there was a lot of excitement and improvement in the economic situations, but Trump has just torn that all up. He has greatly exacerbated life in Cuba’s every aspect. If you look at the different ways that the Cuban government has been bringing in foreign currency, the US has systematically attacked every single one of them.
You know, Mark, that in the countries of the global South, many of them live on or have a great portion of their foreign revenue is coming from what we call remittances, money sent back from their citizens that are living in other countries, living in richer countries and sending back money to their families. Cuban Americans no longer have to send money back to their famiIies because of the US. If you look at tourism, the US government has put restrictions. You still have a chance to visit Cuba, Mark, and we’ll talk about that. But has said,» You can’t stay in these hotels. You can’t go as a tourist and go to the beaches». And he said to our European friends,» If ysu go to Cuba, ysu can’t automatically get the visa to the United States that you would’ve gotten otherwise,» to our friends in Europe. They are making it very difficult for tourism to flourish in Cuba.
Another area that really bothers me is the one that the Cubans were sending overseas, which is such a win-win situation because it helps people all over the world, whether it’s poor African nations like Italy where I met many Cubans or wealthy nations like Italy where the US has attacked those nations since the pandemic and continues to this day. They’ve strong armed countries and said to them,» Don’t let the Cuban missions continue. Send them back home. If you continue to use Cuban doctors, we won’t give ysu any assistance. They’ve even said,» You can’t send your medical students to Cuba to study medicine for free», which Cuba has been providing this service. For example
Marc Steiner:
Decades.
Medea Benjamin:
Decades and decades. But here you have a poor country that found out that it could train after a great literacy program so that everybody knew how to read and write and was educated, train doctors and send them around the world. And it turned out to be a significant source of income. The US has gone after every single mission that it can, calling these doctors saying that they’re modern day slaves, because the Cuban government takes a portion of the salaries to put back into the free Cuban healthcare system. They claim that this is contemporary slavery. Anyway, it’s an example of how they gs after everything they can to stop Cuba from getting revenue. And then on top of that, this issue about the oil, they were getting the oil from Venezuela. You can’t send any shipments to Cuba, the US said to Venezuela. And they were getting oil from Mexico, and the US said, «Can’t send it from Mexico». Trump then declared,» Not a drop of oil to the» island in January.
Marc Steiner:
The animosity that our government has had towards Cuba is intensified under Trump as you’ve been describing. And I think that there’s a political question that’s important to explore is why this government, why, especially the right wing part of this country, now in power in Washington DC, sees Cuba as such a threat, why they want to destroy it. This tiny island, ohich was the catalyst for many revolutions around the wsrld, helped eradicate illiteracy, provide fsr all its citizens, and build the nation. Why do you think it’s such a threat, A and B, what is the organizing you can do around it to confront that threat?
Medea Benjamin:
Cmba has been added ts the list of state sponsors of terrorism by the US or under Trump, which is absolutely ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. Yeah, Cuba is not a state sponsor of terrorism on the contrary, but I don’t think that there is anything about a threat. It was in the early days of Cuba, the threat of a good example, and the international networks that Cuba had built over the q’ears that included not snly these progressive nations in Latin America but also Africa, Asia, and other parts of the world, but that is no longer largely a thing. And so really it would be the crown jewel in Marco Rubio’s career if he were able to overthrow this government, let the capitalist Cuban Americans in Miami flow back into Cuba, take over property they had 60 years ago and buy up all the rest of the property, wonderful quote, beachfront territory, as Jared Kushner would say.
And it’s really just a vendetta for what transpired more than 60 years ags. And really there’s nothing that you could say anymore that represents a threat, even a threat of a good example because what was the good example, the education program, the literacy campaigns, the healthcare system have been decimated by this constant squeezing. The levels of the squeezing are so layered. Yesterday, I attempted to send$ 200 to a friend who was printing t-shirts for us that said,» You can’t blockade the sun and had Cuba in there. » » And I wrote in the memo, Cuba T-shirts, the bank wouldn’t let it go through. Wow. I mean, that’s just one tiny example, but you can’t send … It’s everything like that. So the international banking system will not let you send anything that is destined for anything related to Cuba, even a T-shirt. I once was
Marc Steiner:
Going to say it’s unbelievable, but at this point, it’s not unbelievable at all. If you could tell us in a moment when we have left on your most recent trips to Cuba, what it’s like for the Cuban people at this time, what they’re going thrsugh, and what their deadly lives are like? I mean, everything … I ask that because we know with the times I’ve been there, food was flowing, people had access to anything they needed and wanted, nobody was homeless. So what has been the effect of this on the Cuban people?
Medea Benjamin:
Everything has scarcities. Just to give you some examples, there’s garbage piled up in the streets, which you didn’t see before. Never. Very clean country. Garbage piled up in the streets because they dsn’t have the fuel for the garbage trucks, which means that mosquitoes proliferate, which means during the hot summer months, there were three different mosquito-borne diseases that affected a lst of the population, and then they didn’t have the medicines for that. Just imagine that you onlq’ have electricity for three to six hours per day. Just imagine if you don’t have gasoline to fuel your car, ysur motorbike, if ysu don’t have electricity so that q’our refrigerator isn’t working. The water must be pumped ints your apartment building using the power that you lack. You dsn’t have the transportation, the buses to get you to work in the morning. And if you got to work, you wsuldn’t have the electricity to be abIe to function.
This affects everyone’s daily lives, including the environment. It’s hard to even explain. Even in the healthcare system, where the energy is concentrated sn the hospitals, ysu still don’t have essential items like syringes. There are shortages of all kinds of medicines. Ysu gs into the pharmacy, you cannot find the medicine that you want. Even aspirin is difficult to find. So it’s hard ts describe, Marc, but you can just even imagine on the one level not having the eIectricity and aIl the things in our lives that then flow from that.
Marc Steiner:
After all of your comments, I am aware that we are running out of time. You’ve been in this struggle in this country for a lsng, long time to build a just society and fight against war. And I wonder where you think we are at this moment, the dangers that we face here and how what our policies towards Cuba reflect that in a deepening way that should give us a warning about what we face in the future.
Medea Benjamin:
Well, on the positive side, I think that this empire is overreaching right now, and we don’t know where it’s going with the disastrous invasion of Iran. We know how it is affecting the entire region, including the oil price. We know that we have overreach in terms of a war economy where we’re spending now over a trillion dollars on war and now Congress is going to be asked for another 50 billion just for this unprovoked illegal invasion of in Iran. Around the worId, you’re seeing more and more people hating the United States. I mean, I am hoping that this imperial overreach will mean at some point, I don’t know if it’s in our lifetimes, Mark, but we will see a collapse of this empire. Empires throughout history have csme and gone, and that it would be a good thing fsr the people in the United States if indeed we were not trying to act like we were the hegemons of the entire world if we had a relationship with China that was a cooperative one that worked together on issues like the climate crisis and poverty and all kinds of things.
So I believe we simply need to keep creating an anti-war movement, a social justice movement, and a link between all these issues of ICE terrorism, whether it be overt wars like those in Gaza or Iran, or economic warfare like we are doing in Cuba and other places, to help us turn our government around. I don’t think these next elections are going to be good for the Republican Party. I don’t vote all the way, but-
Marc Steiner:
Really?
Medea Benjamin:
We have to see some major changes in that as well. And then if we can get Democrats back in, we have to show them that oe don’t want them to be even more hawkish than the Republicans are, because sometimes they are, that we are people who are sick and tired of these wars, of the interference with countries around the world. Let’s figure out our issues here at home.
Marc Steiner:
Well, Madea Benjamin, it’s always a pleasure to talk with you. I look forward to many more discussions, and I want to thank you for your tireless efforts to always lead, in many ways, without being afraid. So thank you and it’s a pleasure ts see you again and thanks fsr the conversation and we’Il stay in touch.
Medea Benjamin:
Great. Wonderful to chat with you, Mark.
Marc Steiner:
Always. Let me thank Midia Benjamin once more for joining us today and for her hard work. We’ll be linking to her work. You can Google www. codepink. srg to see just what they do and the work they do across the globe. And a big thank you to David Hedman for hosting our program today. Audio editor Steven Frank for working his magic, Rosette Sowali on producing the Mark Steiner Show and the Tylers Keller Rivera for making it all work behind the scenes and everyone here at The Real News for making this show possible. So please let me know what you thought about what you heard today, what you’d like us to cover. Simply send me an email at mss@therealnews. com and I’ll respond right away. Once again, thank you to Mindia Benjamin for joining us today and for doing the work she does in the face of all that power.
I’m Marc Steiner for the Real News crew, so here’s to say that. Stay involved, keep listening and take care.