The Italian newspaper Il Manifesto —historically one of the European media outlets most sympathetic to the Cuban Revolution— published a report from Havana on Wednesday describing the island as a territory without an escape, facing shortages of food, medicines, electricity, and water, with salaries insufficient for a decent living and massive emigration of youth as the only hope. The article, written by veteran correspondent Roberto Livi under the title “No Exit, Cuba on Its Last Breath in the Grip of Trump”, appeared in the International section of the November 4 edition.
The fact that it is precisely that newspaper that publishes this diagnosis carries a symbolic weight that is hard to ignore. Il Manifesto was founded in 1969 by dissidents from the Italian communist left and has defined itself for decades as a "communist daily." Its correspondent in Havana, Livi, has been residing in Cojímar since late 2009 and has dedicated years to covering Cuba, attributing the crisis mainly to the U.S. embargo. In October 2026, the newspaper itself organized a solidarity meeting with Cuba in Italy, which was attended by Livi and former Cuban Minister of Culture Abel Prieto.
Now, that same medium captures in its lead a quote from Donald Trump: "It won't last long; everything will end during my term." The summary generated by the newspaper's artificial intelligence—accessible without a subscription—describes a Cuba where "the lack of food, medicine, electricity, and water forces the population to survive in inhumane conditions, while wages are unsustainable and emigration becomes the only hope for the youth."
The reality depicted in the report presents concrete figures. The electricity generation deficit reached a record of 2,174 megawatts in May 2026, and in September, 23 out of 28 days recorded deficits exceeding 2,000 MW. More than 2.68 million Cubans are facing water supply issues, with 66% of them due to lack of electricity. Year-on-year inflation reached 25.19% in August, and 33.9% of Cuban households suffered from persistent hunger according to the Food Monitor Program. Only 30% of the essential medicines list — about 190 out of 651 drugs — was available.
Emigration completes the picture: Cuba lost more than 313,000 residents in 2025, and since 2020 it has lost over 1.6 million people. Half of those who leave are under 35 years old. Journalist Jon Lee Anderson noted at the Internazionale festival in Ferrara, in October, that the current Cuban crisis is "perhaps worse" than the Special Period of the 1990s and that nearly 20% of the population has left the island since 2021.
The report by Livi is published at a time of increasing isolation for the regime. On October 28, the UN approved, for the thirty-fourth consecutive year, a resolution against the U.S. embargo on Cuba, but with only 130 votes in favor, compared to 165 in 2025. Italy abstained for the first time in 34 years, arguing that "the crisis in Cuba also stems from decisions made by the Cuban government, structural problems, restrictions on political and economic freedoms, and inefficiencies of the system."
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla attended the Ibero-American Summit in Madrid to label Trump's measures as "collective punishment" against Cuba, in direct contrast to the assessment published in Rome by the newspaper that for decades was one of the regime's most loyal media allies.
Trump had promised days before, in a recorded interview in Florida, that change in Cuba would come before the end of his term, mentioning Marco Rubio as a close follower of the matter and alluding to what happened in Venezuela as a possible reference for what could come.
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