Written by Elena Gutierrez
May 11, 2026
I returned from Cuba last week, delivering $20,000 worth of urgently needed cancer medicines in partnership with the Movimiento Mexicano de Solidaridad con Cuba and through the generous support of so many of you who donated, organized, and made this effort possible.
We brought the medicines because Cuba is being deliberately strangled by a decades-long U.S. blockade designed to make daily life unbearable, cutting off access to medicine, fuel, food systems, banking networks, transportation, and the basic materials needed to sustain life.
One of the places we delivered medicine was Cuba’s leading oncology institution in Havana, the country’s largest center dedicated to cancer diagnosis, treatment, and research. Doctors there told us they had not received a shipment of cancer medicines since our delegation arrived in March.
The country’s premier cancer hospital. Months without critical cancer medicines. Doctors trying to stretch what little remains. Families waiting. Hoping. Improvising.
And on May 1, while millions of Cubans filled the streets in defense of dignity, sovereignty, workers’ rights, peace, and an end to the blockade, President Trump signed yet another Executive Order escalating the economic war on Cuba.
As workers, students, families, and international delegations marched through Havana rejecting war, intervention, and collective punishment, Washington announced new measures designed to deepen shortages, tighten isolation, and further suffocate Cuba’s already fragile economy.
The order expands sanctions targeting major sectors of the Cuban economy and threatens third-country companies and financial institutions that engage with the island. It deepens restrictions on fuel, trade, banking, transportation, and economic lifelines that ordinary Cuban families rely on to survive. Particularly alarming is language that could further restrict humanitarian aid and solidarity efforts, placing even more barriers between patients and lifesaving medicine.
The contrast was impossible to ignore: millions of people publicly calling for peace and survival while the United States doubled down on a policy whose effects are felt in darkened hospitals, empty pharmacy shelves, and families searching desperately for medicine they cannot find.
While this Executive Order was being signed in Washington, we were in Havana marching alongside workers, students, families, and international delegations during May Day celebrations. It was one of the most powerful demonstrations of collective dignity and resistance I have ever witnessed.
Delegations from around the world walked beside Cuban workers calling for an end to the blockade and defending the right of people to live free from economic warfare and foreign intervention. At a moment when U.S. politicians openly threaten military aggression against Cuba, the meaning of international solidarity felt profoundly urgent.
There were conversations during the trip that I will never forget.
People spoke quietly about preparing for the possibility of invasion. Parents described gathering small toys and keeping them packed in backpacks for their children in case the worst happens, something to comfort or distract them from the sounds of war, if electricity disappears, if chaos erupts.
In the face of escalating sanctions and growing shortages, we are not stepping back. We are deepening our solidarity.
Global Exchange and our partners are already preparing our next humanitarian delivery of cancer medicines to Cuba in the coming month because patients and healthcare workers cannot wait while politicians in Washington continue tightening a policy of economic suffocation.
We are also expanding our humanitarian aid collection efforts from our San Francisco office, gathering urgently needed medicines and medical supplies to send directly to communities and hospitals across the island.
But we cannot do this alone.
Every donation helps us purchase and deliver lifesaving cancer medicines and humanitarian aid directly to people impacted by the blockade. Every contribution helps us carry another suitcase of medicine, fill another shipment, support another patient, and continue breaking through the isolation these policies are designed to create.
And we are continuing to bring people to Cuba.
Our solidarity delegations are returning in June, August, and September, creating opportunities for people in the United States to witness the realities of the blockade firsthand, build relationships with Cuban communities, and participate in the growing international movement demanding an end to collective punishment against the Cuban people. We recently added the August delegation in response to growing interest, and we will be sharing more details soon.
The blockade depends on isolation.
Solidarity breaks it.
At a moment when hospitals are rationing medicine, families are enduring daily blackouts, and parents are quietly preparing backpacks for their children in case war comes, neutrality is not an option.
We invite you to stand with Cuba.
Donate if you can.
Bring humanitarian aid.
Travel with us.
Help us continue delivering medicines, building solidarity, and challenging policies rooted in cruelty and collective punishment.
The Cuban people should not face this alone.
