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The Cuban chancellor Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla once again dusted off one of the classic pillars of the regime's propaganda: the Mallory Memorandum.
According to its tattered version, this document would be the "foundation" of a "genocidal" policy of the United States against Cuba. The claim is not new, but it is indeed profoundly misleading.
The memorandum, drafted in April 1960 by a State Department official, was neither a law, nor an executive order, nor a government decision.
It was an internal analysis in the context of the Cold War, at a time when the Cuban regime had already begun the confiscation of American properties and was moving towards a strategic alliance with the Soviet Union.
Turning that text into the origin of all U.S. policy towards the island is a deliberate manipulation.
The embargo did not arise from a memorandum
The embargo imposed in 1962 did not arise from an isolated recommendation, but from a series of concrete events.
Between 1959 and 1960, the Cuban government expropriated billions of dollars in U.S. assets —refineries, sugar mills, companies— without effective compensation. In response, Washington removed the Cuban sugar quota, one of the country's main sources of foreign currency.
Havana responded by deepening its dependence on the Soviet Union, signing economic and military agreements. In the midst of the Cold War, the establishment of a Soviet ally just 90 miles from the United States was seen as a direct strategic threat.
That context —not a document— is what explains the embargo. Reducing it to the Mallory Memorandum is not a mistake: it is propaganda.
A useful document for building a narrative
The text from Mallory does convey a clear idea: to use economic pressure to weaken the Cuban regime. However, this does not make the document the "manual" of the embargo or the cause of the Cuban crisis.
The regime uses it because it fits perfectly into their narrative: an all-powerful external enemy to which they can attribute all internal problems. However, the data dismantle that story.
For over 60 years, the Cuban economic model has demonstrated:
- Chronically low or negative growth
- Structural dependence on external subsidies (first the USSR, then Venezuela)
- Productive collapse in key sectors such as agriculture and the sugar industry
- Failed monetary duality and incomplete economic reforms
Even during times of sanctions relief —such as under the Obama administration— the Cuban economy failed to take off or generate sustained well-being.
Victimhood as State Policy
Rodríguez Parrilla's speech emphasizes terms like "energy siege," "cognitive warfare," or "genocidal blockade." It is not technical language; it is political language designed to mobilize support and deflect responsibility.
Calling it a "genocide" in relation to an economic sanctions policy is not only incorrect from an international legal perspective, but it also banalizes a term reserved for crimes of extermination.
Meanwhile, the regime avoids answering key questions: Why doesn’t Cuba produce enough food? Why does it rely on basic imports after decades of state control? Why do economic reforms always come late or get reversed?
The answer is not in Washington, but in Havana and the totalitarian communist regime built over decades, which is now crumbling, exacerbating violence and corruption.
The real problem that they don't want to admit
The Mallory Memorandum is a relevant historical document, but its use as a complete explanation of the Cuban crisis is a political strategy, not a serious analysis.
Six decades later, the regime continues to rely on the same argument because it allows them to avoid the essential: acknowledging that the economic and political model imposed in Cuba has failed.
And beyond external sanctions, that failure has internal responsibilities.
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