A deputy minister of the Cuban regime described the U.S. embargo as "genocide" during an interview in Montevideo this Thursday, but the response from many Cubans turned the argument on its head: the responsibility for the humanitarian crisis afflicting the island lies with the very government that resides in the Palace of the Revolution.
Déborah Rivas Saavedra, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment (MINCEX), declared to the Uruguayan newspaper El Popular that "there is a genocide against Cuba, it has no other name," while participating in an international meeting in the Uruguayan capital.
The official also described a situation of extreme scarcity that she attributed entirely to the sanctions from Washington: "We cannot operate on children, children with cancer are not receiving medication, there are food items that are going to waste because they cannot reach the country."
However, Cubans responded on social media that the main genocide they experience comes from the Palace, referring to the seat of the regime in Havana.
The Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, acknowledged in May that Cuba had no reserves of fuel oil or diesel, a situation that analysts and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have primarily linked to the collapse of Venezuelan supplies and to structural failures accumulated over decades of state management, not just to the embargo.
The term "genocide" has become the central theme of the official Cuban discourse during 2026. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez described in July the new package of U.S. sanctions as "a clear manifestation of criminal and genocidal intent", and President Miguel Díaz-Canel asserted that same month that Cuba is a victim of "a coldly calculated genocide."
But citizen distrust of the official narrative and the transformations announced by the government is extensive: many Cubans remember that what is now being presented as a solution was prohibited for decades by the same system that is now promoting it.
While the regime multiplies its international appearances to blame the embargo for every shortcoming, the question circulating within the island points in another direction: who has been 67 years managing the economy that today cannot guarantee medication for children with cancer?
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