“I do believe I will be having the honor of taking Cuba.”

        This remark did not come from a king of old Europe, a South American caudillo, or a 19th-century colonist. It came from the sitting president of the United States of America. For a nation committed to the principles of self-determination and national sovereignty, such a comment betrays an outrageously imperialist sentiment. 

       This, though, is not surprising. It is not the unique whim of one American president: American interference in Latin America is a historical and modern phenomenon which has long enjoyed bipartisan support. The United States routinely ignores the rights and agency of Latin Americans, and in doing so strays from the principles of the global democratic order.

The Cuban Crisis

        Cuba has long been a target of the United States. Since Fidel Castro's agrarian reforms of the 1960s, which saw lands owned by Americans nationalized by the still-nascent revolutionary government, the U.S. has been plotting the end of the regime. When Castro announced the socialist nature of the revolution and strengthened ties with the Soviet Union a short while later, the United States' frantic desire to overthrow the government, which it saw a communist foothold in the Americas, only grew. The zenith of this anxiety was the Cuban Missile Crisis, where Cold War posturing in response to the stationing of Soviet nukes on the island brought the world the closest it has ever been to nuclear war. With all of this in mind, Washington's goal calcified: Regime change in Havana by any means necessary.

        This has taken many forms over the years, from fantastical assassination plots to arming and training Cuban exiles for the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. The United States' most enduring tactic in its campaign to destabilize the Cuban state, though, has been its sanctions regime: Since the 1960s, the United States has maintained an economic embargo on Cuba, the longest in modern history. The United Nations has long denounced the embargo, which was imposed without the consultation of the international community and which has had severe economic and humanitarian consequences for the Cuban people.

        Now the embargo is reaching new heights. Since January of 2026, the United States has blocked the entrance of all energy imports to the country and threatened sanctions on those who violate the restrictions. The result has been widespread blackouts and energy instability. The capabilities of Cuban hospitals have been massively reduced, with some 100,000 people (including 11,000 children) waiting for electricity to return or for medical supplies to arrive before their surgeries can proceed.

Weaponization of Human Rights Language

        When confronted with the consequences of such an inhumane sanctions regime, American officials typically point to the shaky human rights record of the Cuban government. In a May message to the Cuban people, for example, Secretary of State Marco Rubio decried the censorship, political repression, and corruption of the Cuban state. These are valid concerns: Amnesty International has long noted the litany of abuses that characterize the Cuban leadership. There can be no doubt that Havana employs heady-handed and authoritarian-style crackdowns on dissenting voices.

        But if concern for human lives and dignity is front-of-mind for American officials, why do they maintain a blockade that starves Cubans and prevents them from receiving medical attention? Why does the United States routinely perform extrajudicial executions in the Caribbean? Why does the President of the United States speak of "the honor of taking Cuba?"

Self Determination in 'America's Backyard'

        In Cuba, the U.S. is not interested in human rights action. It is not interested in operating through the proper channels of international consensus-building. It is not interested in finding avenues of change that don't harm the Cuban people. The United States is only interested in getting its way by any means necessary – the modus operandi for American interest in Latin America.

The Secretary of War calls Latin America, "[...] our own hemisphere, our backyard." He does not leave room for the desires of those living in that 'backyard,' only for the brutal imposition of American will over territories that don't have the military strength to resist it.

        There is a word for such a phenomenon: Imperialism. The first article of the UN Charter (whose drafting was hosted in San Francisco, and which the U.S. signed) seeks "[t]o develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self determination of peoples." The international order rests, at its most basic level, on the maintenance of that respect. In Cuba, as in Venezuela, and off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago, and in Pacific Colombia (to name only the examples from 2026), Washington has shown a disregard that borders on mockery for the principles of equal rights and for the rule of law.

        Brazil is not preparing to invade Uruguay. Argentina has no designs on Peru. Nicaragua seems content without taking Honduras, and Canada is unlikely to begin a bombing campaign in Baja California. There is one country in this hemisphere whose bellicosity exceeds all others, and it is the one that I am writing from. It is long past time to admit that we, as Americans, have a long and shameful history to reckon with in Latin America. If we allow the inhumane deprivation of the Cuban people to continue, we will be repeating a grave and unforgivable error. 

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s only and do not reflect an official position of the University of Minnesota, the Human Rights Program, or the College of Liberal Arts. As an institution of higher education that values and promotes free speech, civil discourse, and human rights we welcome a variety of perspectives and opinions from our student contributors that are consistent with these values.