By Duane Stilwell

HAVANA, Cuba, May 1, 2026 — Beginning at 3:30 a.m., Cuban working people from all over this city began mobilizing to answer the growing threats of an invasion by the U.S. government, converging on four different rally sites in the country’s capital.

Because of fuel shortages, tens of thousands walked in small groups for many miles to reach these sites throughout the city.

This time, international guests — some 827, from 38 countries, representing 152 solidarity groups, trade unions, and political parties here to celebrate May Day with the Cuban people — were not merely observers but active participants.

We gathered at Revolution Square at the site of the monument to Jose Martí, Cuba’s national hero. Alongside throngs of ordinary Cubans — including many in their military uniforms — we then marched at a fast pace for about three miles to reach the Anti-Imperialist Tribunal erected in front of the U.S. embassy on Havana’s seaside boulevard known as El Malecón.

On the way, we passed by many streets where contingents of Cubans were waiting for us to go by before they joined the march.

The mood was joyful but combative. Many Cubans, especially students and other young people, have a tradition of spending the night together with their peers before joining the May Day demonstrations throughout the island.

In Havana, 500,000 participated in the four rallies, according to the Cuban press, the reports of which are corroborated by magnificent aerial photos.

An estimated 5.2 million people turned out in May Day rallies in cities and towns across the country, according to Cuban media. In the province of Ciego de Ávila, a new photovoltaic park was inaugurated as part of the celebrations for International Workers’ Day. A range of photos from May Day marches across Cuba can be seen below.

As in previous May Day rallies and marches, most people participated with their union brothers and sisters or with members of other mass organizations like the Federation of University Students (FEU) or the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC).

When we arrived at the Anti-Imperialist Tribunal along the Malecón we met up with unionists from several Latin American countries who had participated the week before in a Trade Union Internship at the invitation of the Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC).

The CTC represents the vast majority of working people in Cuba, both in state enterprises and the growing private sector. Workers in Mypimes, the acronym used for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, have been steadily joining CTC-affiliated trade unions in their corresponding economic sectors.

‘Every day that goes by is a victory for Cuba, a victory for peace’

Osnay Miguel Colina Rodríguez, president of the Organizing Committee for the CTC’s 22nd Congress, and member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, gave the main speech at the rally held at the Anti-Imperialist Tribunal.

“Our enemies have rehearsed and tried everything,” he said. “They thought they would see us strangled, submissive. And here we are, committed and firm, with our foot in the stirrup and fighting.”

The union leader called the outpouring of more than half a million people in Havana “Fidel’s May 1st in the year of his centennial.”^[1]

Colina Rodríguez declared that the resounding response of Cuban workers who filled the streets and squares of this country today has shown that “socialist and anti-imperialist Cuba will be around for a long time. Without surrender or disregard for history.”

Referring to the global context, he declared: “In the 21st century, where the extreme right and neofascism intend to dominate without facing any resistance, we reaffirm our Mambí^[2] and rebel lineage.”

Colina Rodríguez emphasized that “in the middle of this storm, Cuba, the rebellious island, continues to stand as a moral beacon, without armies for invading or digital algorithms for lying. This country has sent doctors where others send bombs; it has provided literacy education where others impose functional illiteracy; and it has shared the little it has where others hoard wealth. Our greatest weapon is not a missile, but a conscience, and our certainty that another, better world is possible.”

The trade union leader denounced the U.S. blockade, which “has reached unprecedented levels in recent years,” describing it as “merciless collective punishment.”

Despite the extreme hardships U.S. policy has imposed, he continued, “against all predictions of that war machine… and against the countless limitations intended to suffocate us and make us surrender to irrational threats of war and death, this May 1st confirms that we are here — that not only are we resisting, but we are also creating, growing, and triumphing in the face of adversity. Every day that goes by is a victory for Cuba, a victory for peace.”

(Colina Rodríguez’s entire speech can be found here.)

Trump escalates military threats, sanctions against Cuba

Cubans who poured into the streets of this country in their millions on May Day were responding not only to Washington’s decades-old economic war, intensified with the U.S. oil blockade that has prevented virtually all petroleum, except one Russian oil tanker, from reaching the country since February of this year.

On May 1, U.S. president Donald Trump repeated once again his threats of a U.S. invasion of the Caribbean country. After an hour-long speech in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump referred to Cuba, adding, “which we will be taking over almost immediately.”

Trump elaborated: “What we’ll do, on the way back from Iran, we’ll have one of our big, maybe the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, the biggest in the world, we’ll have that come in, stop about a hundred yards off shore and they’ll say, ‘Thanks you very much, we give up.’”

The same day, Trump signed a new executive order escalating sanctions against Cuba, especially targeting companies and individuals in third countries that do any type of business with the island nation.

The latest edict from the White House built on the executive order Trump issued on January 29, declaring a “national emergency” due to the “unusual and extraordinary threat” that Cuba allegedly poses to the United States, and announcing that Washington will impose harsh punitive tariffs on any country that trades oil with Cuba.

Nearly 70% of adult Cubans sign petition denouncing U.S. threats

In response, nearly 70% of Cuba’s adult population have signed the petition “My Signature for the Homeland,” denouncing the U.S. blockade, energy siege, and threats of war, and reaffirming their right and duty to defend the country’s national sovereignty.

A feature of the rally at the Anti-Imperialist Tribunal was a symbolic ceremony during which Nancy Morejón, Cuba’s Poet Laureate, presented Raúl Castro,^[3] one of the few living historic leaders of the Cuban revolution, with 6,230,973 signatures of ordinary Cubans over 16 years of age who signed this petition.

After the leader of the CTC initiated the rally, a union member from the chemical industry spoke about the fuel siege.

Yolaidis Hernández Valdés denounced the “intensified economic, commercial, and energy blockade” imposed by the U.S. government and escalated since Trump’s January 29 executive order. “We will not stop,” she said. “We have a responsibility to reinvent ourselves in order to grow.”

This reporter met representatives of COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) and other trade unionists who came to show their solidarity from around the world.

The rally also had a cultural component. Live music and an impressive dance routine by the dance companies Revolución and Villallas closed the celebration. The music and dance lifted the mood of those attending or watching the event on social and other media.

As people left the celebration, international guests chanted Cuba Sí, Bloqueo No! (Cuba Yes, Blockade No!) and chatted with and hugged those departing. The contingent of 50 unionists and young activists from Hands Off Cuba committees from various U.S. cities received an especially warm reception from many, including Venezuelan and Colombian trade unionists.

NOTES

[1] Fidel Castro was the central leader of the Cuban revolution. He served as Cuba’s president from 1976 until his retirement in 2008. He died in 2016. The year 2026 marks the centennial of his birth.

[2] The Mambí were guerrilla independence fighters who fought in the 19th-century wars to liberate Cuba from Spanish colonial rule and to abolish slavery. Primarily active between 1868 and 1898, they formed the Ejército Libertador de Cuba (Cuban Liberation Army).

[3] Raúl Castro is another central leader of the Cuban revolution. He is a general in Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces. He served as the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, from 2011 to 2021, and as Cuba’s president between 2008 and 2018, succeeding his brother Fidel Castro.

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