The Cuban regime celebrated the International Solidarity Meeting with Cuba and Anti-Imperialism "100 Years with Fidel" this Saturday in Havana, with nearly 800 delegates from 152 organizations from 36 countries, under the slogan "Cuba is not alone," amid an unprecedented escalation of tensions with Washington.
The president Miguel Díaz-Canel led the event, which took place hours before the May Day gathering, moved this year to the José Martí Anti-Imperialist Tribune — in front of the United States Embassy on the Havana Malecon — under the slogan "The Homeland is Defended."
The May First event was also presided over by Raúl Castro, in his first public appearance since December 2025, alongside Díaz-Canel.
The solidarity gathering occurs in a context of intense U.S. pressure.
This Saturday, Trump signed a new executive order that expands sanctions against Cuba, blocking assets related to energy, defense, mining, and financial services, and imposing secondary sanctions on foreign banks that conduct business with the Cuban government.
The day before, at a private dinner of the Forum Club in West Palm Beach, Trump had threatened to send the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to the Cuban coast to force the regime's surrender, assuring that the United States would "take Cuba almost immediately" after concluding operations in Iran.
Díaz-Canel responded with a defiant statement declaring that "no aggressor, no matter how powerful, will find surrender in Cuba" and that any attacker "will stumble upon a people determined to defend sovereignty and independence in every inch of national territory."
The chancellor Bruno Rodríguez described Trump's new sanctions as "collective punishment of the Cuban people" and denounced them as "illegal and abusive."
The regime took advantage of the May Day event to present 6,230,973 signatures from the "My Signature for the Homeland" campaign as proof of popular support, symbolically delivered to Raúl Castro and Díaz-Canel.
Critics and opponents describe the figure as impossible without mass coercion, given that it would represent more than 56% of the total Cuban population, including children and the elderly.
The day before the parade, children were taken out of their schools in San Miguel del Padrón and Santiago de Cuba to participate in preliminary marches, and independent journalist Ángel Cuza was arrested in front of his daughter by State Security agents.
The Cuban regime declared 2026 "Year of Preparation for Defense." In April, Díaz-Canel had already called on the people to prepare for combat, invoking the doctrine of "total people's war," while in an interview with Newsweek, he warned: "If a military aggression occurs, we will counterattack, we will fight, we will defend ourselves."
Since the beginning of Trump's second term, the administration has imposed over 240 sanctions against Cuba. These measures have reduced Cuban oil imports by between 80% and 90%, causing blackouts of up to 25 hours a day in more than 55% of the territory, with a direct and devastating impact on the civilian population.
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