Cuba receives help from Colombia to circumvent US blockade

A ship with humanitarian aid sent by Colombia arrived in Cuba this Friday (12). The island has suffered from a lack of fuel, which has impacted other sectors of the economy, since the United States extended the blockade.

Last month, Cuba’s Vice Minister of Health, Tania Cruz, even classified the North American action as genocide, during the World Health Assembly, in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Colombian shipment, sent by President Gustavo Petro, contains more than 100 tons of food, medicine and solar panels, essential for overcoming the energy crisis.

The US blockade has intensified since Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was kidnapped. The main source of oil used by Cuba came from the country. Furthermore, the US began to pursue oil tankers of other flags, including Russian, bound for the island, which has around 9.6 million inhabitants.

The ship left Cartagena and docked in Havana. Petro has been an outspoken critic of the US-imposed blockade. In this sense, its government indicated that the sending of inputs takes into account the difficulties faced by the island, including natural catastrophes and the energy crisis.

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This is not the first time the Colombian government has sent aid. Mexico, Uruguay and Belize are other countries that have contributed consistently.

At the end of 2025, Hurricane Melissa hit several Caribbean islands, causing extensive damage in Cuba, Jamaica and Haiti, among other countries. Since then, the situation has worsened and, with the intensification of the embargo, the crisis has taken on new dimensions, with the country having to count on the humanitarian solidarity of friendly nations. In March, a Brazilian brigade showed solidarity with the Cuban people.

The shipments seek to mitigate the effects of the crisis caused by Hurricane Melissa, responsible for significant damage to infrastructure and housing, which became even more tragic with greater foreign intervention in the country’s sovereignty.

Reforms

Also on Friday, the president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, announced a series of measures for the country to confront the United States. According to him, the country is not standing still and is working on ways to overcome current challenges. As he notes, the US does not forgive the Cuban Revolution continuing to exist, which is why it maintains what it classifies as “multidimensional aggression” with “total contempt and of an interventionist nature”.

Cuba’s strategy focuses on optimizing national defense, to protect the population, as well as on an economic and social level. As indicated, a major reform must be carried out based on listening to the Cuban people, which has been happening since the previous year. A final text will be debated in the National Assembly.

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The plan has more than twenty transformation themes, such as a set of measures and actions “to offer more goods and more services to our population, as well as for exports that enable income”, said Díaz-Canel.

He explained that the idea is to resolve the contradiction between centralization and decentralization, removing, among other aspects, obstacles and promoting the attribution of competencies. In this matter, municipal autonomy and business autonomy gain strength, with municipalities being authorized to export and import based on their own production.

Complementarily, there is still a set of measures to encourage direct foreign investment, including “surface rights, removal of obstacles, use of bank accounts, approval deadlines for direct foreign investment and agility in responses”, explained the Cuban president.