Amid Washington’s increasing threats against the Cuban people, the 2026 Labor and Youth Activists Delegation to Cuba traveled to Havana to join the celebration of the international working-class holiday on May 1 and to add their voices to those demanding “U.S. Hands Off Cuba. End the Blockade!” Among the 50 young people and political activists were a number of unionists and U.S. military veterans.

In the days leading up to the countrywide May Day actions, the delegation met with Cubans to learn about the gains of their revolution in health care and education; about the advances in equality and social justice for women, Afro-Cubans, and other historically oppressed groups; and about Cuba’s historic role in aiding the struggles of working people and the oppressed worldwide through its internationalist missions.

The members of that delegation also witnessed firsthand some of the devastating consequences of Washington’s extreme hostility to this record over the last 66 years. U.S. efforts to undermine and overturn the Cuban Revolution — which span both Republican and Democratic administrations — have included an attempted invasion in 1961, dozens of terrorist attacks and assassination attempts, and economic warfare. This year the U.S. government upped the ante with its campaign to starve Cuba into submission by blockading the supply of petroleum to the country and issuing threats of military attack.

Among the participants in the Hands-Off Cuba delegation was Cuban American Gerardo Delgado, who is active in the Miami Coalition to End the U.S. Blockade of Cuba. Delgado had earlier participated in the Nuestra América Convoy to Cuba and published a story about that trip, ‘What I Saw in Cuba Was Resilience,’ which World-Outlook reproduced on April 2.

Delgado posted on SubStack the following report about his most recent visit to Cuba, which we publish below with his permission for the information of our readers. The headline, subheadings, and text that follow are from the original. Photos and notes are by World-Outlook.

— World-Outlook editors

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Cuba, Solidarity, and the Lies I Returned Home to Debunk

By Gerardo Delgado

May 5, 2026

I traveled with U.S. Hands Off Cuba (USHOC) as part of the International May Day Brigade.

Our purpose was simple: learn from Cuba directly, deliver medical supplies and material aid to a special needs school, and offer donations to hotel staff out of gratitude for their service and hospitality.

Before we left, I was worried about Trump’s rhetoric implying military intervention. That fear was not abstract. On May 1, 2026, as we marched in Havana, Trump signed an executive order broadening sanctions against Cuba, targeting anyone, individuals or entities, supporting Cuba’s security apparatus or operating in its energy, defense, mining, or financial sectors.

I stand with the Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez when he responded:

“The U.S. has no right whatsoever to impose measures against Cuba.”

As a Cuban American, I cannot stand by and allow such violence against the homeland of my family.

This is not theoretical for me.

Cuba is a beautiful country and a beautiful people.

And whosoever defends them, loves Cuba the most.^[1]

The Effects of the Blockade

Medical aid

Cuba developed five COVID-19 vaccine candidates, the only country in Latin America to do so.

Three completed clinical trials and received emergency use authorization.

Two are approved for children.

As a result, 95% of Cuban children are inoculated against COVID-19.

They achieved this under the most severe sanctions any country has ever faced.

And not just sanctions.

A blockade, which at the present moment amounts to a siege on the entire country.

The vaccines: Abdala and the Soberana series (Soberana 01, 02, Plus).

By January 2022, studies showed over 90% of those vaccinated with Soberana 02 or Abdala developed neutralizing antibodies against the Omicron variant.

With a booster? That reached 100%.

Granma and the digital blockade

We met with the team at Granma, the Communist Party newspaper named after the yacht that brought Fidel, Che, and 80 revolutionaries to Cuba in 1956 to begin the armed struggle.

The editors described how digital sanctions cripple their work.

In August 2020, Google closed Granma’s YouTube channel, along with Cubavision International and Cubadebate, citing U.S. export laws.

These channels contained years of content, analysis, documentaries, and COVID coverage.

Gone. Without recourse.

Twitter has also blocked Granma and other Cuban media repeatedly.

They are barred from using web services that all media companies around the world rely on for reporting. This complicates any turn towards a more digital platform, a struggle newspapers everywhere can recognize.

More recently, due to the fuel blockade, Granma’s print edition was reduced to a weekly publication starting in March 2026.

All provincial newspapers stopped printing entirely.

Yet the team continues.

Verifying facts directly from sources.

Refusing to put out opinions dressed as news.

The Cuban Revolution – Internationalist, Anti-Misogynist, Pro-Palestine

Karibuni – Angola and Ethiopia veterans

I was moved to tears by the Cuban veterans of Angola and Ethiopia at Karibuni.^[2]

They highlighted the scale of Cuba’s internationalism.

320,000 Cubans served in Africa over ten years, as soldiers, teachers, doctors, and engineers.

They helped defeat the apartheid South African invasion of Angola. 2,000 Cubans gave their lives on African soil.

They returned home with no oil. No diamonds. No military bases.

Just solidarity.

Then, an American veteran in our delegation, stood up. Through tears, she asked the Cuban veterans if they had any words for American veterans who feel remorse for what they did in imperial wars.

The Cuban veteran responded:

We hold no hatred for you. The people of the U.S. are not to blame for your government’s actions.

In doing so they affirmed Cuba’s international solidarity.

Because what country can you imagine whose veterans would stand with former members of the very brutal military that has choked their people for more than 60 years?

Only one country that I know of and that’s Cuba.

CENESEX – The Cuban Revolution is anti-misogynist

At CENESEX (National Center for Sex Education), I learned about Cuba’s Family Code, passed by referendum on September 25, 2022.

It legalized same-sex marriage and adoption, surrogacy, and granted expanded protections to children, the elderly, and people with disabilities.

But here’s what most people don’t talk about: the political process behind it.

The draft Family Code was not written in a cigar-smoked back room. It went through 25 drafts. It was debated for months in neighborhood assemblies across the island, popular consultation at a scale unimaginable in the U.S.

The secretary of Cuba’s National Assembly called it the most effective exercise of a legislative referendum in Cuba’s constitutional history.

And yes: mandated paternal leave, up to 12 months paid, so fathers can bond with newborns. That’s what revolutionizing the family looks like.

ELAM Students – The Cuban Revolution stands with Palestine

The first night, I met international medical students from ELAM, the Latin American School of Medicine, founded 26 years ago.^[3]

It has graduated thousands of doctors who serve poor communities worldwide.

The students from ELAM told us they want to help their families and communities, and Cuba has given them a chance to do so when no one else would.

The Cuban Youth – Living, Studying, Dancing under Blockade

University of Havana

We met with leaders of student groups who taught us about their experiences living and studying in Cuba.

They walked us through the University of Havana, founded in 1728. Almost 300 years old. A place where generations of Cubans have studied.

I had the privilege of spending a couple nights out with them.

Eating.

Drinking.

Sharing.

Dancing.

We went out to a restaurant one night and went to a jazz bar to listen to young Cubans play. And we went out to dance clubs on another night, experiencing the regular everyday life of Cubans in Havana.

They live.

They love.

They have fun.

They share their time together with their friends and communities, like many of us do here at home.

Despite 66 years of blockade designed to break their spirit…

I can confidently report:

They are unbroken.

And they are unbowed.

The May Day March – Manifestation of solidarity

More than 500,000 people gathered in Havana on May 1st, 2026.

In a book containing over 6 million Cuban signatures (nearly two-thirds of the population) Cubans signed for peace and the sovereignty of Cuba, in defense of the revolution against U.S. military intervention. Which we know from U.S. actions in Iran would assuredly result in the deaths of innocent Cubans including children.

That’s what solidarity looks like.

Nothing in the United States compares.

The march itself was a tremendously moving example of solidarity unlike anything else. A sea of people gathered along the Malecón and the streets of Havana. Citizens. Political leaders. Members of the military. Along with international visitors who traveled from across the world to be there.

They manifested in Havana to express their strong feelings of unity with the plight and the cause of the Cuban people and we marched together.

Returning through Customs and Trump’s Executive Order

On the night of May 1st, as we marched in solidarity, Trump’s executive order dropped.

Legal experts in our delegation worked through the night to inform us of our rights.

Here is what they told us.

The order authorized secondary sanctions.

That means foreign companies (banks, oil firms, mining operations) can now be penalized for doing business with Cuba even if they have no U.S. presence.

A former Treasury sanctions investigator from the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control called it “The most significant move for non-American companies since the embargo began.”

“Oil and gas, mining companies, and banks that have carefully segregated their Cuba operations from the United States,” he said, “are no longer protected.”

The order does not stop at government officials.

It targets adult family members of designated individuals.

And it targets foreign financial institutions that facilitate any significant transaction for sanctioned entities, risking their access to resources.

This amounts to collective punishment against the Cuban people.

Although we were afraid, we persisted, because we were already there and had no choice, like the Cuban people we got a taste of the uncertainty that results from the attacks on their country.

Next Steps

Share this report with your community.

Organize against the new executive order.

Keep bearing witness.

Keep sending aid.

Keep building solidarity.

Because the Cuban people have never stopped building theirs.

And to any Cuban-Americans reading this:

No blame.

No hate.

Just the truth.

NOTES

[1] The author is paraphrasing lyrics from the song “Cuba, que linda es Cuba” (how beautiful is Cuba), a patriotic and revolutionary song familiar to most Cubans. Composed by Eduardo Saborit in January 1959, barely a month after the victory of the Cuban Revolution, the lyrics allude to those who claimed to love Cuba but had abandoned their homeland following the revolution. The song declares: “Quien la defiende la quiere más” or in English, “Whoever defends her [Cuba] loves her the most.”

[2] Karibuni is “a global foundation, philanthropic fund as well as multinational policy think tank. We do education initiatives, helping nutrition projects, technology programs, as well as global humanitarian assistance. We put a special global attention and focus on communities that have large numbers of Afro Cuban population,” according to organization coordinator Kenia Serrano. The group hosted a meeting between the delegation and veterans of the Cuban campaigns in Angola and Ethiopia.

Cuba carried out 23 military missions aiding the struggles against colonialism in Africa, including in the Congo in the mid-1960s, Angola (1975–1991), Ethiopia (1977–1978), and Guinea-Bissau (1966-1974).

In the Horn of Africa, Cuban volunteers helped defend Ethiopia — where an anti-feudal land reform and deepening anti-imperialist struggle was unfolding — from a U.S.-backed Somali invasion.

In November 1975, the Cuban government responded to a request from the government of Angola, sending thousands of volunteer troops to help defeat the invading armed forces of South Africa’s apartheid regime. Pretoria was determined to block the Angolan people from realizing their hard-fought independence from Portugal, set for November 11, 1975.

When Cuban volunteers arrived, South African troops had already pressed more than 400 miles into Angolan territory and anti-government forces had reached the outskirts of the capital city of Luanda. By late March 1976, however, the last invading forces had been pushed back over Angola’s southern border into Namibia, at that time still a South African colony.

This initial defeat of apartheid’s army gave new impetus to the struggle for a nonracial, democratic republic inside South Africa. The new rise of struggles reinforced the African National Congress (ANC), which had been banned in 1960 and many of whose leaders, including Nelson Mandela, were imprisoned for their anti-apartheid activities. The advancing struggle inside the country increased the pariah status of the apartheid regime worldwide.

In November 1987, in the face of a critical situation in which South African troops had encircled Cuito Cuanavale in southeast Angola, Cuba made the decision to send thousands of volunteer reinforcements and massive amounts of weaponry and supplies. By March 1988, the South African troops had been dealt a decisive military defeat there by the combined forces of the Cuban volunteers, the Angolan army, and fighters from SWAPO (South West Africa People’s Organisation) in Namibia. The South African invaders were forced to withdraw from Angola.

In subsequent negotiations the apartheid regime ceded independence to Namibia, which celebrated the end of colonial domination and the establishment of its own government in March 1990. The outcome at Cuito Cuanavale gave another impulse to the battle against apartheid — leading to the unbanning of the ANC and the release of Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders from prison — and its eventual defeat inside South Africa. On July 26, 1991, ANC president Nelson Mandela — who was elected president of the country in 1994 — and Cuban president Fidel Castro spoke together for the first time at a historic rally in Matanzas, Cuba.

“The crushing defeat of the racist army at Cuito Cuanavale was a victory for the whole of Africa!” Mandela said in his speech. “The defeat of the apartheid army was an inspiration to the struggling people inside South Africa! Without the defeat at Cuito Cuanavale our organizations would not have been unbanned! The defeat of the racist army at Cuito Cuanavale has made it possible for me to be here today! … Cuito Cuanavale has been a turning point in the struggle to free the continent and our country from the scourge of apartheid!”

For more information see How Far We Slaves Have Come by Nelson Mandel and Fidel Castro.

[3] In 1999, the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), the world’s largest medical school, was established outside Havana. Its main campus is in the Santa Fe district of Playa, roughly 22 miles (35 km) west of Cuba’s capital. Its purpose was to train doctors from countries lacking sufficient resources to train medical personnel to meet the needs of their populations. The idea for the school emerged from the overwhelming need identified by Cubans participating in medical missions around the world.

By 2019, ELAM had graduated 29,000 doctors from 105 countries, including the United States, representing 100 ethnic groups. Half were women, and 75 percent from working-class or peasant families.

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