GIERACH BLOGS

by James E. Gierach

Why is President Trump blockading Cuba?

Why is Trump making the lives of Cubans miserable, and doing it in our name, the United States of America?

These questions occurred to me because of a social media post I read by Reina Magdariage Larduet, a Cuban journalist I met in Ecuador in 2015. We met at the invitation of Rodrigo Vélez, then drug-czar of Ecuador, who favored my draft of a proposed amendment of United Nations “drug-control” conventions.

I wrote and called for an amendment of those three UN drug conventions, because drug prohibition as a governmental policy, adopted by 186 nations since 1961, does not work. That truth is more evident to more people today than it was in 2015. I wrote the proposed amendment on behalf of an organization then-called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP).

Reina was in the audience of Spanish-speaking journalists who heard my presentation. My presentation addressed the need to amend United Nations “drug-control” conventions, conventions predicated on drug prohibition and banning the recreational use of all drugs. Reina became my friend, and her recent post spoke of the dire consequences faced by Cubans because of America’s blockade of Cuba. Her post prompts this piece.

Regularly, Cubans lack electricity, food, medicines, gasoline, and other necessities. Life is not easy for Cubans. But why does the president of the United States think our country’s mission should include adding to the miseries of the people of Cuba, our Western Hemisphere neighbors?

Most Americans are too preoccupied with other Trump-made crises, catastrophes, and bad news to spend their spare-time thinking about the people of Cuba.

Bad news, surprising news, shocking news — news outlets and social media daily broadcast and report on the bad consequences of a great nation led by a mediocre President Trump and his MAGA acolytes. Stories evidencing Trump audacities are as dependable as Old Faithful spouting water, as American-Trump debt exploding through existing debt ceilings, and as attention-grabbing as cage-fighting on White House grounds. Endless Trump spectacles and sex stories from the Trump-Epstein Era distract the attention of Americans from Cuba and the suffering of the Cuban people under Trump rule and attack.

Trump attacks constitutional principles (e.g. birth right citizenship, talk of Trump’s Third Term, Trump acceptance of really big foreign gifts without Congressional approval); Trump attacks the Rule of Law (e.g. No war without Congressional Declaration, and tariffs set by Congress) and American values and norms (e.g. Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Religion); Trump waging his War on Iran, Trump’s befriending dictators like Putin and indicted war criminals like Netanyahu; Trump pardoning January 6th insurrectionists and multimillion-dollar fraudsters.

Evermore distracting stories shadow Trump about many topics: crypto currency market manipulation, growing millions of medically uninsured Americans, high prices for gasoline and food, global warming, pervasive flooding, and evermore violent storms. Then there’s American challenges to the sovereignty of Venezuela, Canada, Greenland, and Denmark, and challenges to the continued existence of the World Health Organization, NATO and the United Nations itself.

Trump appointees challenge the propriety of vaccinations and measles rebound, voting by mail, transformed a Department of Defense into a Department of War, and renamed the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, briefly.

Not finally, but additionally, there are stories about the destruction of the East Wing of the White House and the Rose Garden, and stories about the construction of a White House Ballroom with a big fence that Mexico will pay for, Trump might say. Some Trump stories are puzzlements: do unidentified flying objects fly, does Senator Mitch McConnell live, did vandals damage the Lincoln Reflecting Pool or was the damage done when a Trump motorcade drove across its freshly painted bottom like a golf cart crossing a Trump golf green.

Many distracting Trump stories!

But bad as a Trump America is, things are worse in Cuba. Trump intentionally makes life worse for Cubans. That’s not very American.

We must end the Trump nightmare as soon as possible. To that end, mark your calendars for the November, Midterm Elections. Anything that sounds like a Trump, looks like a Trump, acts like a Trump, or smells like a Trump — “Just Say No.”

July 28, 2026, Chicago, Illinois USA

“Just walking.”