Amid a week of diplomatic turmoil between Cuba and the United States at the UN, CiberCuba's weekly discussion addressed a question that has remained unanswered for decades: who should lead the change in Cuba, Washington or the Cuban people themselves?
The debate arose in the context of the poorest outcome for Havana in the UN vote regarding the embargo in three decades: there were 130 votes in favor (17 against and 25 abstentions) compared to 165 in 2025 and 187 in 2024.
Entering the debate, the writer and analyst Frank Rodríguez emphasized that as an American citizen, he can demand that Trump uphold his own words because the Cuban people cannot be asked to resolve the problem, as an uprising cannot be predicted, planned, or relied upon.
For his part, activist and influencer Manuel Milanés acknowledged that Cuba poses a real problem for U.S. national security, but warned about the risks of placing all hopes in Washington. “The United States will do it when it wants, how it wants, and with whomever it wants... It might end up in a political structure that we like, or perhaps a democracy, a puppet government, a protectorate; there are countless examples throughout history.”
Basically, Manuel Milanés believes that you cannot ask an American mother to sacrifice her child to free Cuba, when it should be the Cubans themselves who are willing to do anything to bring democracy back to their country.
To this argument, Rodríguez responded that in the American Army, a soldier's mother is not called to weigh in on whether her son should risk his life in Panama or Grenada, because those who enlist are fully aware that they are risking their lives in the name of their country's interests and defense: the United States.
For Milanés, it is also influenced by the fragility of depending on a foreign policy that changes with each administration. "If we lose the elections and a president like Obama, for example, reaches the White House, we go back to 2015 and once again have 191 votes against the decision on the embargo."
Although he did not deny that Cuba is a problem for U.S. interests, he insisted that the deeper dimension is another. "As a Cuban, it affects me because it is my country, my land; it is where I want to die, where I was born, and where I want to be, and where I do not want the communists to be."
His conclusion was decisive: "We have to do it ourselves."
Both discussants agreed that the two dimensions are real and do not exclude one another, but they differ in emphasis: one thing is that Washington has strategic interests in Cuba, and quite another is that Cubans delegate their own liberation to a foreign power.
The debate takes on greater significance in light of this week's events: the expulsion of Cuban diplomat Richard Tur de la Concepción after assaulting the U.S. spokesperson at the UN, the exhibition by Ambassador Mike Waltz of images of Cayo Piedra and Rolex watches attributed to Fidel Castro, and the public call by Marco Rubio for Cubans to discreetly collaborate with the CIA.
This last point generated special controversy in the discussion: if Washington designates Cuba as a threat to its national security —as stated by the State Department in a nearly 100-page report published in July— and then calls on Cubans to take action, what happens if the policy changes with the next occupant of the White House?
Manuel Milanés summed it up with a vivid image: one cannot ask a farmer from Immokalee to send her son to fight against communism in Cuba when the Cubans themselves are not willing to bear that cost.
The chancellor Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla dismissed Rubio's call to collaborate with the CIA, describing it as "unserious and childish," according to reports from the Cuban state press. Analysts in the discussion interpreted this as a sign of the regime's discomfort in the face of an offensive that, despite its contradictions, is eroding international support for Havana.
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