Interview with Cuban Leader Ernesto Limia Díaz

We are pleased to publish below an interview with Ernesto Limia Díaz (EL), a historian, writer, member of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (known as UNEAC, its Spanish-language acronym), and director of the TV program MARCAS. He is also the author of the bilingual book Patria y cultura en Revolución (Homeland and Culture in Revolution).

Duane Stilwell (DS), editor of Panorama-Mundial, the Spanish-language sister publication of World-Outlook, conducted the interview in Havana, Cuba, on April 30, 2026.

Last November, World-Outlook published its first interview with Limia Díaz, ‘Cuba Is the Moral and Political Compass of the World’, which readers may want to go back to.

The interview was conducted in Spanish. Translation into English, as well as photos and notes, are by World-Outlook. Due to its length, we are publishing the interview in two parts, the first of which follows.

— World-Outlook editors

*

(This is the first of two parts. The second can be found in Part II.)

DS: What has been the impact on the Cuban people of the U.S. economic war, especially since the January 3 U.S. military assault on Venezuela (and the kidnapping of that country’s president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores) and the January 29 executive order by U.S. president Donald Trump that launched the blockade of virtually all petroleum shipments to Cuba?

EL: It is more than a blockade; it is a siege. It is a brutal intensification. The siege did not begin in January. The blockade of all fuel began in December, since U.S. preparations went into high gear for the attack on Venezuela.

The effect is terrible, because it has the tendency to paralyze not only the generation of electricity, but transportation in general, and especially the transportation of doctors to the hospitals, and the transportation of teachers to their schools.

In smaller cities and towns, the impact is not as complicated because people can walk. But in a city like Havana the situation is very difficult.

As a result, an intensive care doctor may have no way to get to the hospital. Can you imagine the intensive care clinic of a pediatric hospital without a doctor?

Because doctors have no way to travel to treat people.

The effect is brutal and can only be resisted by a country like ours, which is an organized country, with clear goals, a country where solidarity is institutionalized. The distribution of resources, of the few resources we have, is organized, and solidarity is used to solve problems.

For example, there are private drivers of electric motorcycles who transport doctors for free, on their own initiative. Bus solutions are also being sought to transport doctors who are irreplaceable, who have to be there.

Even though the effect is genocidal — they don’t care, that’s where you realize they don’t care about anything, about human life — Trump’s moves are intended to prepare a military invasion.

What they are seeking is to reduce to zero the combat capability of our forces to defend us — so that in the event of an invasion, our planes can’t fly, our tanks can’t get out, our trucks transporting troops can’t move.

And in order to reduce Cuba’s combat capabilities to zero, they are capable of starving an entire people, depriving us of water, because even to pump water you need fuel.

On top of the siege and the economic harassment, virtually eliminating the country’s ability to generate income by neutralizing exports and killing tourism, they are now adding the fuel blockade.

You can imagine that we face a very tough situation. There are cancer patients who cannot get chemotherapy. I know cases of people who are close to me who are at home waiting for death, because we lack the drugs to do chemotherapy.

That affects the elderly; it affects the disabled, too.

Until about 15 days ago, blackouts in the capital lasted 15, 16, 17 consecutive hours. Havana had not known such blackouts since the Special Period,^[1] since the beginning of the 1990s. You notice it in the avenues, in the streets. Transportation has been reduced to a minimum. What you see are the motorbikes. Lots of electric motorcycles.

We face a very complicated situation. Private transport has become more expensive, increasing inequalities. If you want a taxi, there is a taxi. But taxi fares are prohibitive; they’re for those who can afford them — a minority. They are Cubans too. But the majority of Cubans can’t afford such prices.

DS: In an interview with Alma Plus on August 25, 2025, you “predicted a [U.S.] surgical strike against Venezuela, followed by an attack on Iran — China’s fourth-largest oil supplier — and that, depending on the outcome of that conflict, they would come for Cuba.” It seems that, unlike Venezuela, Iran has so far stymied the massive imperialist assault. What is your assessment of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, and its implications for Cuba?

EL: First, they have not met their objectives. Of course, today they are already going through the 15th revision of their goals, because they did not meet their initial aim, which was to overthrow the Iranian government in 96 hours.

They bombed the country, they attacked it, they assassinated Ayatollah [Ali Hosseini] Khamenei and much of the military leadership. But now there is a new Ayatollah, there is a new military leadership.

It is an asymmetric war. Iran caused damage they did not expect to U.S. military bases in the Middle East. The Gulf monarchies already see that the U.S. military cannot protect them.

The damage to U.S. military bases exceeds $5 billion dollars. To that you have to add the expenses of their airplanes and other equipment that has been destroyed and their weapons stockpiles that have been depleted. The Yankees must have spent about $75 billion dollars in that war so far, without meeting any of their objectives.

On the contrary, they have discredited themselves.

They have made it clear no one respects them, because even Europe refused to join the war. Several countries, several strategic NATO allies, denied the use of their military bases to attack Iran.

Then, you realize that they have turned the U.S. army into a corps of mercenaries at the service of the transnationals, the oil companies.

And in the end, they have not achieved their objectives. They have neither changed the Iranian government, nor have they managed to subjugate Iranian culture, nor have they managed to get Iran to renounce uranium enrichment for civilian purposes.

They have managed, yes, to make the countries of the Middle East understand that they are not safe, even if Yankee troops are there. They have managed to make the world understand that Iran is a victim, not a victimizer. Today there is greater international awareness that Iran is defending its sovereignty and independence.

DS: And how do you see Israel’s role in this war?

EL: Israel attacked Iran because it has the United States right next to it. The Israeli government would not dare to enter a war with Iran if the United States were not on its side.

Netanyahu is also fleeing from a trial where he is going to be found guilty of corruption and he may be imprisoned. In order to stay in power, and to save his skin, he has allied himself with the most ultra-reactionary sectors of Zionism, Hitler’s emulators, who are doing to the Arabs, to the Palestinians, what Hitler did to the Jews.

Netanyahu has to fight for the war to continue, because if peace comes, he knows he will be in trouble.

There is an alliance of opposition parties coming together to run in upcoming elections in Israel. If they win the elections, that scenario can change, because it is false that all the Israeli people want war with Iran.

The war is taking a heavy toll on Israel. And the war is having a very big cost for the world.

DS: Part of the intensified U.S. economic war has included attempts to isolate Cuba in Latin America and the Caribbean, pressure governments in the western hemisphere to cut diplomatic ties with Cuba and expel Cuban volunteer doctors on internationalist missions in these countries. How successful has Washington been in these efforts?

EL: It is part of the economic siege and also part of the political siege.

In a symbolic dimension, the Cuban medical brigades teach solidarity. In a neoliberal world, where individualism is exacerbated to the extreme, solidarity is a subversive value. Because it shows the value of empathy. Solidarity is an antidote to fascism.

In the political sphere, U.S. pressures are aimed at undercutting support for Cuba, so that in case of a military invasion, they can have some legitimacy and face less regional rejection.

There are two types of government in the region that support the U.S. or bend to its pressure. One, right-wing governments. There are several countries in Latin America today — Ecuador, Chile, Paraguay, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Panama — with right-wing governments.

There are other governments, especially in the Caribbean, that have always been very supportive of Cuba, which are small countries that are very vulnerable to economic and financial pressures from the United States, because they depend a lot on remittances from the United States. And tourism, especially cruise ship tourism. They also depend on aid programs, although the United States is going to reduce that to a minimum in this administration.

Maintaining programs like the Cuban medical brigades carries a political cost to some of those countries.

In the economic sphere, it is part of U.S. harassment to curtail Cuban income, because thanks to those medical collaboration programs, Cuba received income that allowed it to preserve the public health system in Cuba. The foreign currency obtained from these programs is used to buy medical supplies to produce medicines, vaccines, chemotherapy, the national pharmacy program.

DS: According to reports in the U.S. media, Washington has allowed some shipments of oil to Cuba as long as they go to private entities, like hotels or Mipymes [an acronym in Spanish for micro, small, and medium enterprises], but not for state-owned companies. Is this true, since oil processing and fuel distribution in Cuba is owned/run by the state?

EL: I understand that there are some Mipymes that are making small imports. Oil is imported for them, for their operation, in containers that can be transported. A container arrives on a vessel and is simply unloaded and delivered for the particular use of that company. It is minimal, of course, it is a minimum amount.

Given the extent of harassment, of blockading fuel, this situation is going to last quite some time. What the country has been looking for, what has been a lesson to the country, is that we have to migrate to renewable energy.

DS: A recent report in the U.S. media indicated that “Cuba has transformed its electricity system in just 12 months, increasing solar power from 5.8% to over 20% of total generation as the country races to escape dependence on oil imports now blocked by US sanctions.”

The same report said that “the Caribbean nation connected 49 new solar parks to its grid between early 2025 and early 2026, adding more than 1,000 megawatts of capacity with equipment and financing from China. The expansion represents one of the fastest renewable energy transitions ever achieved by a developing country.”

It continued, “China is committed to building 92 solar parks by 2028 with a combined capacity of approximately 2,000 megawatts, nearly matching Cuba’s entire current fossil fuel generation capacity.” Is this true? Do you foresee the possibility that Cuba could shed its dependence on fossil fuels for energy generation in such a short time?

EL: At this moment, it is projected that 10% to 12% of energy is being produced through alternative means, renewable energy. And the government wants to end this year by increasing that to 15%.

There are expected to be 95 solar parks in total by 2028, which are expected to produce 2,000 megawatts of electricity per year through photovoltaic panels. That is one path.

But there is another way. Options have been created so that individuals and private companies, as well business sectors and state enterprises, can import solar panels to protect themselves, to produce energy for themselves. Each company would have its own way of self-managing its production of electricity and in turn any surplus can be sold to the state.

DS: A key part of that are the batteries, which are expensive, right?

EL: Exactly. The country has already begun to import batteries, mainly from China.

The plan is to deploy the first battery arrays in the first quarter of this year, because solar energy is produced during the day, there is no generation at night. If you do not have a battery to store energy produced during the day, you lose it. Today, for example, about 1,000 megawatts of electricity are produced from solar parks already installed in the country. But only about 500 megawatts are being used.

Why? The sun fluctuates. Sometimes it has more strength, sometimes it has less. That voltage imbalance can cause a shutdown of the system.

The first batteries are needed to maintain the balance and to be able to use those 1,000 megawatts. If you don’t have batteries, you have to have a reserve of panels to stabilize the system in the event of a voltage drop.

The projection is that from 2035 Cuba will not need to import oil.

Cuba today produces oil for 40% of its energy needs. Today the country is putting science to work on refining that oil, which is heavy, with high sulfur content, to be able to use it even as fuel.

Therefore, the country is working on several fronts.

One is to continue this accelerated pace of installing photovoltaic farms that would allow the production of 2,000 megawatts of electricity per day.

Two, is to install the batteries that allow the system to stabilize and then begin to grow in such a way that energy can be accumulated for the nighttime.

Three, giving the option to people, families, private companies, to import their own photovoltaic panels to make them independent. In fact, some donations that China has made of photovoltaic kits have been distributed among teachers, doctors, hospitals, polyclinics, and maternity homes. So the load on photovoltaic farms is less.

At the same time, then, work is being done to increase national oil production, which had decreased, to increase that production of national crude oil and in turn increase the refining capacities of that crude.

Cuba is working toward the goal that from 2035 it will no longer import oil and that from 2050 it will have completely transitioned to clean energy in electricity generation.

In other words, Tarea Vida^[2] but in the realm of energy.

And in turn, the import of electric motorcycles and cars has increased.

DS: How is that going?

EL: Well, that is a great challenge and people are acquiring electric cars and motorcycles, and electric bicycles. It is the solution. Cars are more expensive. Taxis are even migrating from the old almendrones — cars like the American Chevrolet in the ’50s, which consume a lot. Taxis are increasingly migrating to electric cars. Today it is becoming more common to get into an electric taxi.

DS: And those come from China? Because Mexico is importing a lot.

EL: They come from China, but not always directly. There are direct exports from China and there are also private companies that are acquiring motorcycles, for example, in countries in the region and then selling them here.

DS: And the question of dependence on China, is that something that people are concerned about, or not? The narrative in the U.S. media is that China is trying to replace the United States in Latin America.

EL: China has replaced the United States in the United States! But that is a false narrative. Today the largest production of the American iPhone is in China.

In Cuba you cannot use the iPhone because it is subject to the laws of the blockade, because it is American. But they make it in China.

And you say, well, Ford cars are emblematic. Yes, but one of the largest and most efficient Ford car factories is in China.

Meanwhile, the United States moved many of its industrial plants out of the country, looking for cheap labor in Mexico, Vietnam, China, Nepal, Bangladesh, India.

India is the other country where the iPhone is manufactured, while the famous jeans that were produced in the United States are now produced in Vietnam, in Bangladesh.

So, while the United States outsourced its industrial plants, looking for cheap labor abroad, and concentrated on financial speculation, China took the lead in manufacturing goods or industrial products to sell in the United States.

That’s why, when Trump started the tariff war with China, he had to stop. And he had to stop because within the U.S. itself the pressures were gigantic, the soybean farmers and all that —the situation was thrown into disarray.

Starting with the fact that it absolutely affected supply chains.

DS: And what some farmers lost is not being recovered, many are changing what they plant because they have lost the market for their products. Some of those who used to plant soybeans are now planting corn.

EL: The agricultural sectors were among the sectors most affected by the interruption of supply chains in the United States, as well as large commercial chains. Walmarts are full of Chinese products. But it’s not just in the United States. It’s in Canada, it’s in Spain, it’s in Switzerland, it’s in Germany, it’s in Italy.

Yes, the world today is full of Chinese products, because while the phenomenon of neoliberal globalization developed where rich countries took out their industrial plants looking for cheap labor, they deindustrialized and therefore everyone is now buying industrial products from China.

Singling out China’s economic relationship with Cuba is not only unfair, it is false, because China also does not give Cuba anything for free.

Yes, China does make small donations, but they are symbolic donations. Japan has also made donations to us at a certain time. Canada has made donations to us. Just as now at a meeting in Madrid, [Spain’s prime minister] Pedro Sánchez, [Brazil’s president] Lula da Silva, and [Mexico’s president] Claudia Sheinbaum agreed to increase humanitarian donations to Cuba. Therefore, other countries have made donations to us.

Of course, Mexico is making donations in greater numbers than China.

So, this narrative is simply aimed at deceiving U.S. public opinion to legitimize a pretext for something as terrible and unjust as a military aggression against Cuba.

(This was the first of two parts. The second can be found in Part II.)

NOTES

[1] During the early 1990s, following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Cuba faced its first severe economic crisis since the victory of the revolution in 1959. Confronted with the cutoff of trade at preferential prices with the former Soviet Union, Cuba suddenly faced a 35% plunge in economic production (equal or greater than the decline of the Great Depression in the United States in the 1930s). Those years are often referred to as the “Special Period in Time of Peace.”

At the same time, Washington intensified its economic warfare against Cuba as the Revolution tried to get new trading partners and sources of capital. Enemies of the Revolution everywhere predicted the “impending” collapse of the workers and farmers republic. Revolutionary minded working people in Cuba, however, defended their socialist revolution in face of these difficulties, showing that the Cuban government remained their government. And they continued to reach out to the oppressed and exploited around the world, aiding anti-imperialist and national liberation struggles.

[2] Tarea Vida (Life Task) is Cuba’s long-term plan to confront climate change. It is succinctly described in the documentary Cuba’s Life Task: Combatting Climate Change. The film was made by internationally known scholar Helen Yaffe, a lecturer on economic and social history at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and a frequent visitor to Cuba who is widely respected for well-known books about the Cuban Revolution. The hour-long documentary described the origins and practical application of an April 2017 law defining Cuba’s goals and international commitments to the necessary task of defending life in the face of human-caused climate change.

Cuba is a Caribbean island with some 3,500 miles of coastline located in a zone of the Atlantic prone to the wrath of hurricanes. The country’s water supply, food production, and ability to protect its citizens and tourism industry are at risk, the movie explained, largely due to environmental pollution caused primarily by heavily industrialized nations. Increasingly violent hurricanes intensify these dangers. The film showed the political challenges to the revolution that arose as it began to implement technical programs aimed at addressing problems such as the safety of some one million Cubans who live in threatened coastal areas.

For more information see Cuba Sets Example in Confronting Climate Change and Miami Event: Cuba’s Example in Confronting Climate Change.

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