The latest US sanctions reversed the progress made by the Obama administration, and the brunt of their force is being felt by the very people the measures claim to support. In Havana, Cuba, the effects of sanctions imposed by the Trump administration have seeped their way into daily life: the long lines of cars outside gas stations, the dwindling stock on store shelves, the increasingly common apagones , or power outages. In early September 2019, Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel appeared on live television to address the Cuban people, describing the country’s economic situation as “ coyuntural ,” meaning happening on some occasions, but not in a habitual or customary manner. This diagnosis was ridiculed by many Cubans, all too aware of the decade-long crisis known as the Special Period that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union — a geopolitical shift that decimated the Cuban economy. With more and […]