Image by Yerson Olivares.
Interviewed on March 2, Cuban Vice-Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío reacted to the Trump administration’s move to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). He granted that “some of these [USAID] programs do benefit some countries … [but the agency] has been employed [also] to foment a fake opposition, create dissident groups, and provoke protest demonstrations in certain countries. That’s of course been the case with Cuba.”
He added that, “One might suppose that with the closing of USAID … funds supplied for counterrevolutionary groups may disappear … [However,] It’s logical to assume that the State Department, (which administers USAID) is going to make sure it retains the power to continue channeling funds of this kind for the same purposes.”
Communicating on social media two days later, Cuban Chancellor Bruno Rodríguez predicted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, interim USAID chief will use the remaining USAID funds “for subversive programs against Cuba and not for international development … in tune with his corrupt personal agenda.”
The Kennedy administration created USAID in 1961 as an arm of U.S. anti-Soviet foreign policy. Ever since, it has funded humanitarian aid programs that extend worldwide. These have enhanced food security, education and pro-women initiatives, measures against illicit drugs, and, most notably, lifesaving projects targeting infectious diseases such as malaria, polio, tuberculosis, and, most tellingly, HIV/AIDS.
Foreign recipients and domestic facilitators of these humanitarian-aid contracts have complained about the recent voiding of 90% of USAID contracts that, altogether, are worth $54 billion.
Beginning in the 1990s, USAID added so-called democracy-promotion programs. Targeting left-leaning governments, these represent the “stick” corresponding to the “carrot” of humanitarian aid. Reporter Tracy Eaton showed that total U.S. government spending from 2001 to 2021 aimed at political destabilization in Cuba amounted to $218,367,438.
The breakdown was “$125,986,260 to support democratic participation and civil society; $35,714,592 for human rights programs; and $25,078,917 for media and free flow of information.” Of this last amount, The National Endowment for Democracy, which receives 95% of its funds from Congress, supplied 62%; USAID funded the rest.
According to Reporters without Borders, “in 2023, [USAID] funded training and support for 6,200 journalists, assisted 707 non-state news outlets, and supported 279 media-sector civil society organizations [in 30 countries] … The 2025 foreign aid budget included $268,376,000 allocated by Congress to support “independent media and the free flow of information.”
Criticism of USAID pro-democracy programs, recently from Secretary of State Rubio, has long centered on misuse of funds by U.S. contractors that send the money to dissidents in targeted countries. There are these instances involving Cuba: an adverse U.S. Government Accounting Office report in 2006, the $500,000 sequestered in 2008 by an associate of the Center for a Free Cuba, and The Cuban American National Foundation’s subsequent report indicating that less than 17% of funds authorized in Washington actually arrive in Cuba.
Journalist recipients of U. S. largesse throughout Latin America, including in Cuba, have bemoaned the funding cut-off. As communicated by the conservative El Pais newspaper in Spain, Mexico-based Rialta News, “founded … by a group of Cuban intellectuals,” announced that, “A Cuba without an independent press will be a country where totalitarianism can operate with impunity.”
El Toque, another alternative Cuba news service, has dismissed half of its employees and, reportedly, will no longer be able to attract freelancers. It issued a “desperate call to its readers for contributions.” Miami-based CubaNet received $500,000 from USAID in 2024 to reach “young Cubans through objective and uncensored multimedia journalism” It too is seeking donations from readers, as is the Spanish-based Diario de Cuba.
Pressure is clearly mounting for the U.S. government to resume paying for political destabilization in Cuba. Mauricio Claver-Carone, Trump’s special envoy for Latin America, insisted to an interviewer that, following a review and elimination of corruption, funding will soon be restored to dissident organizations and media in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba.
Meanwhile the U.S. government has imposed new restrictions on Cuba’s economy and humanitarian endeavors, or renewed old ones:
*Trump once more designated Cuba falsely as a state sponsor of terrorism.
*License was restored for heirs of former property owners in Cuba to use U.S. courts to sue third-country entities making use of those nationalized properties now, this in accord with Title III of the Helms Burton Law of 1996.
*The United States on January 31 added new businesses, especially tourist facilities, to its list of such entities off limits to U.S. visitors to the island, the pretext being that they are controlled by Cuba’s military.
*U.S. authorities on January 31 added Cuba’s Orbit S.A. company to the restricted list. Previously, it had handled Western Union’s remittance transactions on behalf of Cuban families in the United States. The resulting block on remittances is a blow to recipients in Cuba and to Cuba’s economy.
*On February 25, Secretary of State Rubio announced visa restrictions and other measures against persons, Cuban and otherwise, involved with Cuba’s medical missions abroad. The U.S. claim is that these healthcare workers represent forced labor. In fact, they save lives in dozens of countries lacking decent healthcare and, in some instances, payments for their services do support Cuba’s economy.
Source: Counter Punch
