Ramón Saúl Sánchez, leader of the Democracy Movement and a historical figure of the Cuban exile community, launched a direct criticism against the U.S. embargo on Cuba in an interview with Tania Costa: "I do not believe in the embargo. That is the biggest burden that U.S. foreign policy has placed upon us with the acquiescence of some here."
The statement, captured in a fragment of the program, simultaneously dismantles two opposing narratives that, according to Sánchez, are equally false: “Those over there (the regime) say that Cuba is being destroyed by the embargo and those here say that Cuba is being liberated by the embargo. Both are lies.”
The central argument of the exile leader is that the measure does not impact the regime as much as is claimed, because in practice, trade continues. "Here in the United States, everything is sold to the regime and the people of Cuba, benefiting the regime." Meanwhile, the Cuban people depend on the remittances sent by their relatives from abroad to avoid starving.
Sánchez illustrates his skepticism with concrete examples regarding the futility of certain individual sanctions. He points out that imposing restrictions on the head of the military section of the Cuban Embassy in Russia, or having sanctioned Ramiro Valdés while he was alive, are empty measures. "These individuals have no assets in the United States and do not need to enter the country, so the sanctions mean nothing to them at all."
The leader of the exile community clarifies that he does not completely reject all sanctions: "I don’t say that sanctions shouldn’t be imposed in many cases, but that this is not the only way." His criticism is directed at the presentation of sanctions as the primary or sole tool for achieving change in Cuba.
Instead, Sánchez proposes an alternative that he considers much more powerful: providing internet access to the Cuban people. He goes further by suggesting that its absence is not coincidental. In his view, if Cubans could communicate and feel supported when they take to the streets, protests would grow to become "the sovereign and indigenous internal factor that shakes off that tyranny."
This interview takes place at a time of constant protests in Cuba: the Cuban Conflict Observatory documented 1,311 demonstrations in May 2026, with a slight decrease in August, while Cubalex recorded 319 repressive events just in June. The regime has responded with militarization, arrests, and systematic cuts to internet and mobile data, which directly reinforces Sánchez's argument.
The immediate context of the interview involves the revelations from the Nuevo Herald about secret negotiations between the Trump administration and the Cuban government, in which the privatization of CUPET and Díaz-Canel's resignation were explored as conditions for a transitional agreement. Sánchez was the first to raise his voice against this model when the initial contacts became known, describing them in March 2026 as "an offense and humiliation" for the Cuban people.
La Habana has estimated the cost of the embargo between March 2025 and February 2026 at a record of $8.083.3 million, a figure that the regime uses to blame Washington for the crisis. For Sánchez, that narrative is precisely the "rotten merchandise" that U.S. foreign policy ends up feeding with measures that sound forceful but do nothing to change the situation on the Island. It is important to note that so far this year, fuel exports to Cuba have surged to nearly l157 million dollars.
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