The official singer-songwriter Raúl Torres didn't take long to respond. Just a day after Washington announced new sanctions against three officials from the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), the troubadour and deputy to the National Assembly of People's Power published a text in the form of a poem on his Facebook account dedicated to the institution and those sanctioned, turning the pressures into lyrical material for the regime.
On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions against Fernando González Llort, Noemí Ramona Rabaza Fernández, and Leima Martínez Freire, three officials from ICAP, in addition to eight Cuban state-owned companies and the Ministry of Construction. Rubio accused the regime of using ICAP to "infiltrate, corrupt, and radicalize" American citizens.
Torres, true to his calling as a poet on duty, responded this Friday with verses that would make any advertising copywriter blush: “Today, once again, the empire has sought / to uproot the names / of those who sow bridges. / But there are roots that know no fear: / they are called Fernando, Noemí, Leima; / they are called all of Cuba,” he wrote. He could find no more creative title for his lyrical piece than “ICAP.”
In case anyone doubted the depth of the troubadour's geopolitical analysis, the text progresses towards the canonization of the sanctioned as martyrs of the cause: "And the three sanctioned brothers, / are dignity personified, / tenderness turned into a trench, / the Cuba that does not sell out or surrender." The sanctions, of course, are not an issue: "We do not weep for the sanctions; / we carry them like stars on our chest."
The poem concludes with a call for international solidarity that blends grandiloquence and gratitude: "For solidarity is not punished: / it is sown, / watered with the sweat of the people / and blossoms with each dawn. […] Thank you, infinitely thank you, / for not letting go of our hand!"
What Torres elegantly omits with "poetic" flair is that Fernando González Llort, the president of ICAP since 2017, whom he turns into a symbol of dignity, is a former member of the Red Avispa, convicted in the United States for espionage. The institution he defends with verses and elaborate displays had already been sanctioned as an entity on June 4, 2026, along with the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution and Amistur Cuba S.A., under Executive Order 14404 signed by Donald Trump.
The publication this Friday is the final chapter of a lyrical-propagandistic saga that Torres has been a part of throughout 2026. On Sunday, he admitted that "the people are there making their last effort" and a day later proposed raising jicoteas, water buffalos, and jutías to solve the food crisis, although he clarified: "I am a guajiro, but being a guajiro doesn't mean I'm an agronomist or a statesman." In June, he romanticized the crisis with images of "laughter among the cracks of the collapse".
While Torres composes poetry, the Cuban reality presents its own figures, far less poetic: over 90% of households report difficulties accessing essential products, a pound of rice costs more than 300 pesos in the informal market, blackouts last more than 20 hours daily, and the economy has contracted by over 15% since 2020.
The pattern of Torres is as predictable as the blackouts: he denounces symptoms, blames the "empire," and concludes with slogans. What never appears in his poems is an uncomfortable question about why, after 67 years of dictatorship, the Cuban people still cannot eat while their representatives in the National Assembly write odes to the ICAP officials sanctioned by Marco Rubio.
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