A Brazilian municipal legislator has brought firsthand accounts of widespread hardship in Cuba back from an independent, self-funded solidarity trip to the Caribbean island, framing the crisis as a direct consequence of escalated US economic sanctions imposed by former President Donald Trump.
Lourença, a city councilor from Belo Horizonte in the state of Minas Gerais and a member of Brazil’s Socialism and Freedom Party, traveled to Cuba outside of her official legislative duties to join an international collective of solidarity activists. During her visit, she documented conditions on the island for her followers on social media platform X, revealing that the delegation delivered critical donated supplies including sanitary towels and prescription medications to local communities.
In her posts, Lourença painted a stark picture of daily life under the tightened US blockade, which has been in place in various forms for more than 60 years. She reported widespread shortages of essential pharmaceuticals, uncollected garbage piling up in urban streets, and widespread school absences among children whose families cannot cope with current economic conditions. Most alarmingly, she warned that neonatal intensive care units across the country’s public hospital system are at imminent risk of shutting down, endangering the lives of newborns and new mothers.
Lourença tied this acute crisis directly to policy actions taken by Trump, who in January 29 of his term issued an executive order that labeled Cuba an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security. The order authorized harsh new tariffs on any third country that sells or ships oil to the island, cutting off almost all of Cuba’s access to global energy supplies. As a result of this policy, Lourença reported that the island is plagued by widespread, prolonged blackouts, a development she called a deliberate component of what she frames as Trump’s authoritarian agenda for Latin America: rolling back progressive gains and erasing revolutionary symbolic movements that shape the modern history of many regional nations. “Donald Trump’s silent war is leading Cuba to collapse,” she wrote in one post.
She emphasized that almost all medications currently reaching Cuban patients arrive only through international donation, a reality that underscores the urgent need for cross-border anti-imperialist organizing and regional solidarity. “The anti-imperialist struggle and Latin American solidarity have never been more important,” she added.
Even amid the overwhelming economic hardship, however, Lourença highlighted the resilience of the Cuban population, noting that despite daily struggles, “the brave Cuban people continue to resist, praying, dancing and aware of their strength.” She added that during her trip, she encountered extraordinary warmth and determination among the communities she met, moments of beauty that reinforced her faith in collective regional power. “The situation is difficult, but I am also seeing beautiful things and meeting wonderful people, which keeps me believing in our strength,” she wrote.
Lourença’s trip comes as a growing global movement of solidarity has emerged in response to the tightened sanctions. One major initiative, the Convoy Nuestra América, brought hundreds of activists and donated supplies from across the world to Havana starting last week, part of a broader wave of international mobilization to support the Cuban people amid the deepening crisis.