The New Dark Age

Cubans took to the streets on May 1, 2026, under the slogan La Patria se defiende — the Homeland is Defended. The Central de Trabajadores de Cuba framed this year’s mobilization as an act of national defense. Trump’s Jan. 29 executive order imposed secondary tariffs on any country supplying oil to Cuba, adding what the CTC called an “energy siege” to the commercial and financial blockade Washington has maintained for 65 years.

The crisis is concrete. Venezuelan fuel shipments — Cuba’s main outside source of petroleum since Hugo Chávez’s presidency — stopped in December 2025, weeks before the Jan. 3 U.S. operation in which Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores were kidnapped. On April 16, President Miguel Díaz-Canel told a crowd in Havana: “Cuba is not a failed state. Cuba is a besieged state.”

Marches began April 20 in communities and people’s councils and culminated May 1 in municipal and provincial capitals. A million workers marched in Havana on May Day 2025. This year’s mobilization is smaller — the blackouts, the fuel rationing and the transport collapse are real constraints — but it is happening. Photos by Bill Hackwell, via Resumen Latinoamericano.