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What Does It Mean to Be a Good Cuban American?
Being a good Cuban American means to support the people, and to fight for what's right and just for them, not for the government; American or Cuban.
Mar 15, 2026
What does it mean to be a good Cuban American? If you'd have asked me that question six years ago my answer would have been the standardized one, because it was an answer that had been etched into my mind since I was young.
To be a good Cuban-American I had to:
- Vehemently hate the Cuban government and revolution;
- Oppose anything that remotely resembles communism or socialism; and
- Thoroughly support the Embargo on Cuba.
Those were the three basic pillars for being a good Cuban-American, and they were not optional. They still aren't. At least, that's what the loud Cuban-American voices in Miami and South Florida want you and me to believe.
For me, being a good Cuban American means stopping the embargo. Stop suffocating my people.
I was born in Cuba a few years before their “periodo especial,” which lasted from about 1991 to 2000. Essentially, it was an economic crisis that was highlighted by extreme reductions of already rationed foods and severe energy shortages (apagones). For the duration of my childhood and young adult life, I was taught that these burdens that Cuba felt were the sole fault of Fidel Castro and his government. That it was communism's fault, and that Che Guevara was the main architect of Cuba's torture. As a result, I grew up the way most Cubans who live in the USA do, with a severe mistrust of anything socialist or communist, fully believing that the embargo was choking the Cuban government, and having the lowest possible opinion of Castro and Che.
When I started college, I got involved in activism, and worked very closely with right-wing ideological organizations. Although at the time, I didn’t realize their beliefs were right-wing, I just felt that it was the only way to think and act as a Cuban. I was taught a lot by them, and of course, deep within all of those lessons were the continued lessons on hatred of communism and socialism, Castro and co., and supporting the embargo. This went on for many years, and I eventually became president of a local university-aligned organization. One day, I had a conversation with someone who had also been heavily involved with dissident work. We began discussing trips to Cuba; he'd said it would be his fifth trip over to the island, and I mentioned I hadn't been back since I left back in 1994. He questioned why.
I began listing all of the reasons that had been so eloquently placed into my psyche for the past 20 years: traveling to Cuba was dangerous, it only benefited the Cuban government, my money would never reach the people of Cuba, I would be blacklisted here in the USA because I would be seen as a communist sympathizer, and so forth.
He looked me right in the eyes and said all of the reasons I'd mentioned were American propaganda, and served no other purpose than to instill fear into people who would otherwise see a situation for what it truly was—cruel and unusual. A situation that only hurt the people of Cuba. A situation that was orchestrated by the American government under the guise of hurting the Cuban government, but the real objective was to obtain control of the small sovereign nation.
Over the last five years or so, I have done a lot of unlearning, and while I still feel very strongly about the Cuban government and their crimes toward the Cuban people who oppose them, I do not believe the issue of Cuba is as black and white as the loud voices in South Florida want you and me to believe. The one thing, however, that is very black and white is that the embargo does nothing but hurt the people of Cuba. The embargo does nothing else but cut off an already limited supply of items, medicines, and tools that the Cuban people need to survive.
If you ask me now what it means to be a good Cuban American, my answer is simple, yet in true Cuban fashion also very complex. Being a good Cuban American means to support the people, and to fight for what's right and just for them, not for the government; American or Cuban. Being a good Cuban American means to call for an end to the decades-long embargo that has done nothing but strangle an already struggling country. Being a good Cuban American means recognizing that NO government is without flaw, but understanding that at times when you are pushed into a corner, there are only a handful of ways to stay alive.
For me, being a good Cuban American means stopping the embargo. Stop suffocating my people. Stop oppressing my people, and stop using their suffering as the excuse to blame another government. Not in my name.
End the embargo. Help the Cuban people. If this calls to you, please join Cuban Americans for Cuba. We have poured our hearts into an open letter against the current US policies toward Cuba (CubanAmericansForCuba.Org/Letter), which is a call to our fellow Cubans to stand with us and show the world who we truly are and what we truly stand for.
Our movement is a blend of members across the United States who don't all think alike, but who share one unshakable conviction: that the future of Cuba belongs to the Cuban people, and to them alone, free from American interference and manipulation.
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'Shield of the Americas': Trump Assembles His Fascist Hemispheric Fan Club
The group of Caribbean and Latin American leaders attending Trump’s weekend summit in Miami are the fan club of his aggressive interventionism, his so-called “war on narco-terror,” and his administration’s attacks on left-wing governments and movements.
Mar 07, 2026
For nearly three years the Dominican Republic had been excitedly preparing to host the region’s biggest multilateral event: the 2025 Summit of the Americas, bringing together the leaders of nearly every government in the Western Hemisphere. But on November 3, only a month before the summit was to take place, the DR’s foreign ministry abruptly announced the postponement of the event citing “recent climatic events” (i.e., hurricanes) and “profound divisions that currently hamper productive dialogue in the hemisphere.”
Indeed, regional “divisions”—others might say “alarm” or “outrage”—had intensified during the fall of 2025 following the US’ massive military build-up in the Caribbean, its air strikes against alleged drug boats—resulting in scores of extrajudicial killings—and the threats of a US attack on Venezuela. Past summits, including the 2022 summit in Los Angeles, had seen Latin American leaders fiercely push back against US regional policies. Fearing a potential public relations disaster, DR President Luis Abinader—following consultations with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio—decided that pulling the plug was the best option.
So far there’s no word of a new date for the Summit of the Americas. This weekend, however, President Donald Trump will convene a far smaller hemispheric summit at his golf resort in Miami. The group of Caribbean and Latin American leaders that will be attending Trump’s summit—entitled “Shield of the Americas”—are fans of his aggressive interventionism, his so-called “war on narco-terror,” and his administration’s attacks on left-wing governments and movements in the region. They have earned their exclusive invitations through various forms of tribute and by pledging their continued loyalty, though it remains to be seen whether Trump and Rubio will succeed in garnering support for every point on their agenda, in particular for their effort to push China out of the region.
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Featuring a who’s who of the Latin American hard right, Trump’s divisions-free summit is reminiscent of recent Conservative Political Action Conferences (CPACs) held in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. Like those conferences—in which Argentina’s anarcho-capitalist president Javier Milei and Chile’s far-right president-elect José Antonio Kast have shared the stage with MAGA luminaries like Steve Bannon—the “Shield” summit appears designed to further promote Trump-aligned far-right cultish ideologies in the Americas. As an added bonus, it will be held at the National Trump Doral Miami, ensuring a solid weekend of revenue for Trump’s resort as well as quick, easy travel to and from Mar-a-Lago for the US president.
Still, it remains to be seen whether Trump—whose overall attitude toward the region and its inhabitants oscillates between contempt and indifference—will be willing to invest real time and energy in cultivating this group of leaders.
Each of the summit invitees—numbering 12 at last count—can claim to have advanced the US administration’s regional objectives in one way or another. Many have engaged in sustained attacks against left-wing governments and movements that have resisted Trump’s imperial ambitions. Milei, for instance, has repeatedly insulted President Lula da Silva of Brazil and thrown his support behind former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, convicted last year of plotting a military coup against Lula.
Daniel Noboa of Ecuador, in addition to persecuting left-wing opponents at home, has engaged in an unprovoked tariff war against Colombia’s progressive president—and vocal Trump critic—Gustavo Petro. On March 4, for no apparent reason other than that of wanting to please Trump and Rubio, Noboa expelled the entire diplomatic staff at Cuba’s embassy in Quito. Similarly, Honduras’ recently-elected right-wing president Nasry Asfura rescinded a medical cooperation agreement with Cuba, leading to the departure of more than 150 Cuban doctors that had been serving low-income communities. This offering will have surely warmed the heart of Marco Rubio, who has been pressuring countries around the world to terminate similar agreements in order to eliminate one of Cuba’s few sources of foreign income.
Above all, the cohort of right-wingers attending the summit have been supportive of Trump’s “war on narco-terror,” currently the main vehicle for advancing Trump’s policy of expanding US political and economic influence in the region, referred to both mockingly and seriously as the “Donroe Doctrine.” The first signs of this “war” date back to the first day of Trump’s second term, when he instructed Rubio to designate various drug cartels and Latin American gangs as “foreign terrorist organizations.” It became real when, in late July of last year, the US president ordered a massive build-up of naval and aerial military assets in the south Caribbean and directed US Southern Command (Southcom) to conduct illegal aerial strikes against suspected drug boats, leading so far to over 150 extrajudicial killings of mostly unknown civilians.
On January 3, following months of threats of US intervention in Venezuela, US forces conducted an unprovoked military attack and invasion of Venezuela and abducted President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, who were flown to New York to await trial on dubious charges. The next day, the members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC, by its Spanish initials) met and discussed a statement denouncing the illegal attack on Venezuela. Nine governments opposed the statement and effectively blocked its release. The leaders of those governments, except for that of politically unstable Peru, are now on the “Shield of the Americas” invitation list. Two other leaders who’d been elected but hadn’t taken office—Kast of Chile and Asfura of Honduras—defended the attack, and have been invited as well.
A number of governments have gone even further in embracing Trump’s “narco-terror war.” After the US administration designated the fictitious Venezuelan drug organization “Cartel de los Soles” as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, later identifying Maduro as its leader, the presidents of Argentina, Ecuador, Paraguay, and the DR (all “Shield” invitees) did the same. Given the lack of real evidence that this so-called cartel exists, the US Department of Justice removed the term from its indictment of Maduro; however, the terrorist designation remains in the books in the US and in those four Latin American countries.
Many of the governments represented at the Miami summit have adopted the term “narco-terror” in official discourse and policy statements. Noboa, whose security forces are allegedly responsible for forced disappearances and widespread human rights abuses, has launched his own “war on narco-terror” in Ecuador. On March 3 the US and Ecuador announced joint military operations targeting “terrorist organizations” with US special forces supporting Ecuadorian commandos to “combat the scourge of narco-terrorism,” per Southcom. Other summit invitees, including Argentina, the DR, Bolivia, and El Salvador appear to be getting in the game as well and Paraguay, like Ecuador, has signed a Status of Forces Agreement with the US administration, allowing the presence of US troops and providing them with immunity from local prosecution.
It’s possible that the Trump administration considers that framing US military expansionism in the hemisphere as a combined war on terrorism and drug-trafficking is helpful in garnering public support, though there’s not much indication that it has, outside of the Republican MAGA base. But it’s hard to claim, with a straight face, that President Trump is genuinely determined to fight drug trafficking knowing that he recently pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a 45-year sentence for his role in enabling the importation of more than 400 tons of cocaine to the US. Or when one considers that one of his primary partners in his drug war is President Noboa, whose family’s business appears to be implicated in cocaine trafficking, according to a recent investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
As of the writing of this article, there are few details about the agenda of the summit except that apparently “security” and “foreign interference” will be discussed. Regarding “security,” Trump, Rubio, and Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth—who are all reportedly attending—probably won’t need to do much to convince their allies to double down further on the “narco-terror” threat. Given recent events, it’s likely they’ll focus more on shoring up regional support for the war with Iran, which has so far received mostly tepid backing, with the exception of presidents Milei, Kast, and Santiago Peña of Paraguay, who have all cheered on the joint US-Israeli attacks. They may also seek more overt backing for the intense US regime change effort targeting Cuba, which involves an oil blockade that could soon cause a “humanitarian collapse,” according to the United Nations. Trump and many Republicans have said that when they’re done in Iran, “Cuba is next.”
By “foreign interference” the White House is presumably not referring to US interference in Latin America and the Caribbean, which has been a constant for many decades but has reached new heights under Trump. Instead, the term is widely understood in Washington as primarily a reference to China’s growing regional influence. Here it is far from certain that Trump and his team will make much progress given the massive economic benefits derived from Chinese trade and investment. China is currently the top trading partner for Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, and Paraguay and the second biggest trading partner for nearly all of the other countries represented at the summit.
Many of these leaders have engaged in strident rhetoric against the PRC, but ultimately have quietly chosen to strengthen relations with the world’s second-biggest (and soon biggest) economy. Milei, for instance, referred to the Chinese government as “assassins” and said that he refused to do business with communists. He has completely changed his tune now: At Davos this year he called China “a great trading partner” and said that he plans to visit Beijing this year.
According to a schedule that the White House shared with the media, President Trump will participate in the “Shield of the Americas” summit for two and half hours and then fly back to Mar-a-Lago in the afternoon. With 12 other heads of state present, it’s doubtful that much will be achieved. There will be speeches—one can expect a long, rambling speech by Trump in which he’s likely to congratulate himself again for his “success” in Venezuela—there will doubtless be many selfies taken with Trump, but it’s unlikely that there will be anything resembling real dialogue.
Instead, the summit’s goal appears to be, first, offering the leaders limited face time with Trump as a sort of recompense for their loyalty and various good deeds. Some of these leaders have already received decisive support from Trump. Shortly before a key congressional election in Argentina, the US Treasury offered Milei’s government a $20 billion bailout, which stabilized the country’s economy and helped Milei’s party clinch a major electoral victory. Late last year, Trump interfered in a big way in Honduras’ election by endorsing Asfura’s candidacy and threatening to exact an economic punishment on the whole country if voters didn’t elect him. Asfura ended up winning by a razor thin margin that was contested by his opponents.
For leaders of some of the smaller countries, participating in the summit is itself a big reward, one that allows them to show domestic constituencies that their pliant behavior has paid off in the form of privileged access to the US president. For Trinidad’s Persad-Bissessar, who supported Trump’s boat strikes even after Trinidadian civilians were killed, and Guyanese president Irfan Aali, who promised US oil companies “preferential treatment” in their bids to operate in Guyana’s booming oil sector, the participation in such an exclusive event with Trump is, in itself, the reward.
Finally, it’s likely that, through this brief summit, Trump and Rubio are hoping to consolidate a hemispheric posse of sorts—a group of obedient allies who will continue to defend the administration’s interventionism and its violations of sovereignty and international law and that will eagerly participate in the expansion of the US’ militarized security agenda.
Still, it remains to be seen whether Trump—whose overall attitude toward the region and its inhabitants oscillates between contempt and indifference—will be willing to invest real time and energy in cultivating this group of leaders. His appointment of Kristi Noem as “special envoy” to the summit, as part of a maneuver to remove her from the position of Homeland Security Secretary, doesn’t send the most positive signal to his far-right guests. Even they may be cringing at the thought of the future of the summit being in the hands of a firebrand immigration enforcer who played a key role in the persecution and stigmatization of migrants that beckoned primarily from Latin America and the Caribbean.
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Can Sheinbaum Avoid A Death Spiral After the El Mencho Killing?
On one hand, demonstrating the ability to confront organized crime may help counter the narrative that progressive governments are soft on violence. On the other, history suggests that decapitation strategies rarely defeat cartels.
Mar 04, 2026
On February 22, 2026, Mexican special forces in Tapalpa, Jalisco, authorized by left-wing President Claudia Sheinbaum and acting on intelligence from the US military, killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, Nom de Guerre “El Mencho,” the 59-year-old leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the most-wanted man in Mexico.
Within hours, the cartel put up roadblocks, arson attacks, and running gun battles across a dozen states, ravaging Tapalpa and other cities. By the time the violence subsided, over 70 people were dead, including 25 Mexican National Guard troops. The entire country is holding its breath as it prepares to enter a new phase of its decades-long Drug War.
Does decapitating a cartel end the Drug War?
The operation was also the culmination of a strategy that Claudia Sheinbaum's predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, had promised to abandon, namely, the militarized war on drugs that since 2006 has left between 350,000 and 400,000 Mexicans dead and more than 130,000 disappeared. Instead, while making some initial welcome gestures, he militarized the Southern Border, created the National Guard, and continued the War on Drugs.
Removing El Mencho may weaken CJNG in the short term. But it could also ignite the next phase of Mexico’s drug war, one that extends far beyond the country’s borders and deeper into the Western Hemisphere.
The Mexican drug war has never been Mexico's responsibility alone. It is the product of an insatiable American thirst for drugs that has only intensified with the opioid crisis, as fentanyl has flooded US streets, claiming tens of thousands of lives annually, with support from Big Pharma. The United States remains the world’s largest consumer market for narcotics; American demand generates billions of dollars annually for trafficking organizations.
Mexican cartels such as the CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel now supply fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin to a US market whose demand keeps increasing, according to new reporting.
American guns are also at the center of this crisis. There are exactly two legal gun stores in all of Mexico, operating under strict military supervision. Across the border, in the four US border states, there are more than 9,000 legal gun sale points.
An estimated 250,000 to 500,000 guns are trafficked from the United States into Mexico each year. Roughly 70% originate north of the border. These include .50-caliber rifles capable of piercing armored vehicles and downing helicopters; many of them were from the American military. A new raid on a CNJG ammo depot revealed that 47% of the ammunition came directly from one US Army plant in Kansas City. That very same ammo was used to kill 13 police officers in Michoacán in 2019.
The CJNG now dominates 23 out of Mexico’s 32 states, with operations stretching from the Pacific Coast all the way to the Northern border. The cartel's estimated worth exceeds $20 billion, drawn not only from drugs but from a diversified portfolio of extortion, petroleum theft, human trafficking, and kidnapping.
It has used extreme force and military-level tactical planning against its rivals, including the state itself. In 2015, it shot down a Mexican military helicopter in Jalisco. It has assassinated mayors, attacked police convoys with improvised armored vehicles, and used drones and explosives against state security forces.
Internally, polls suggest support for the operation is between 80 and 90%. After years of feeling helpless before cartel violence, many Mexicans welcome any action that produces “results.” With this, we see the rise of “penal populism” across Latin America, where electorates increasingly embrace tough-on-crime approaches, even when those approaches destroy democracy and human rights.
The high popularity of El Salvador's right-wing dictator Nayib Bukele, whose approval ratings have hovered around 90%, testifies to the political appeal of iron-fist tactics, regardless of their clear governance costs. Bukele's mass incarceration model, where tens of thousands have been jailed without due process in inhumane conditions where torture is common, has become a model that politicians across the region now invoke, including in Honduras, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Peru.
That comes despite his success being predicated on secret deals with gangs, not on a War on Drugs—most countries that have tried his militarized tactics have suffered increases in the violent crime and homicide rates, at the same time as their economies have become increasingly unequal and democratic societies have cratered.
Externally, President Donald Trump has made clear his view that “cartels are runnning Mexico” and that Sheinbaum and other Latin American leaders should go to war with them, otherwise he will do it for them. His administration has designated Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and considered military intervention in Mexico. A US intervention would be disastrous for both Mexico and Sheinbaum, so the El Mencho operation is the price they settled on.
To add insult to injury, this summer, Mexico will host numerous World Cup matches, including four in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state. The Sheinbaum government is trying to give the allure of tightening security ahead of the games.
She has modeled aspects of her approach on Brazil. Before the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, Rio de Janeiro launched aggressive “pacification” campaigns in favelas, military occupations that temporarily suppressed violence but failed to address its roots while killing high rates of civilians and eroding civil liberties. The War on Drugs has not stopped there, either. We have to wait and see if Mexico follows this tragic pattern.
Across Latin America, the right has successfully framed security as a question of toughness versus weakness, where, as Bukele would put it, “All the gangs know is violence,” and thus must be met with violence. This framing leaves progressive governments perpetually on the defensive, forced to prove their bravado by adopting policies that at the very least, in theory, fly in the face of leftist principles.
The left's consistent (and successful) approach, emphasizing socioeconomic development, public health interventions, drug decriminalization, negotiation, and targeted intelligence rather than mass militarization, has struggled to gain traction in a climate driven by right-wing narratives and fearmongering.
The fundamental problem is that leftist programs take years to bear actual results, while voters demand immediate security. The right, meanwhile, offers quick and strong-handed solutions that reassure voters. It is harder to kill monsters with microloan programs and harm reduction clinics than with tanks and M-16s.
When Former Mexican President Felipe Calderón launched his war on drugs in 2006, he targeted the Gulf Cartel and its armed wing, Los Zetas. The kingpin strategy eliminates cartel leaders, but each decapitation meant groups splintered, and each splintering produced more violence, creating an endless loop of violence until neoliberal President Enrique Peña Nieto was able to sign pacts with certain gangs before resuming the military approach.
During this period, the number of major cartels grew from about half a dozen to more than 200, operating across the country and the entire world. The homicide rate tripled, while many border cities have homicide rates well over 100 per 100,000. Now, hundreds of thousands are dead as a direct result.
Mexico finds itself once again at this crossroads, where it must choose wisely. El Mencho’s bras droit, “El Tuli,” was killed in a clash with security forces hours after. But, the pattern suggests that new leaders will emerge, and the violence will continue. Cartels are resilient, and can adapt to new leadership, new business structures, and market forces very reactively. Taking out one leader, or even the drug trade, won’t put them out of business.
Left-wing governments have struggled to respond without appearing weak. Some voices, particularly those outside of direct political power like academics, human rights advocates, and a few leftist intellectuals, have pointed out the dangers of returning to kingpin strategies, the inevitability of retaliation, and the way military operations invariably claim civilian lives.
So far, however, the Sheinbaum coalition and the left in Mexico have, for the most part, supported the operation, praying that embracing these shows of force can help the left reclaim dominance over the security debate. But, ceding ground to the right on security might risk alienating the rest of the left; shifting the Overton window to the right; and making politics, rather than policy solutions, determine the direction of Mexico’s Drug War.
Sheinbaum’s operation thus creates a profound paradox.
On one hand, demonstrating the ability to confront organized crime may help counter the narrative that progressive governments are soft on violence. On the other, history suggests that decapitation strategies rarely defeat cartels.
Removing El Mencho may weaken CJNG in the short term. But it could also ignite the next phase of Mexico’s drug war, one that extends far beyond the country’s borders and deeper into the Western Hemisphere.
Can you win the politics of security without reproducing the failures of the war on drugs? It may buy Sheinbaum and the left time to continue expanding the welfare state, strengthening institutions, and foolproof Mexican democracy, but it may also open the door for further weaponization of security to destroy that very progress later on.
The better alternative may be to instead embrace a true leftist, principled defense of nonviolent solutions, or, to theoretically and politically justify a security progressivism. Such will be the test of the Latin American left in the wake of rising right-wing populism on the back of security fears.
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