The relationship of the United States with Cuba over 200 years has been examined from the point of view of both fear and imperialism.
Some observers cite fear of Cuba that may have originated in the time of the Monroe Doctrine of the “imminent domain of the United States” or the abolition of slavery in Cuba as a threat to the economy of the Southern States.
In the sixty years since the Cuban Revolution, the contrast between the health and education systems of Cuba and the United States is most visible in the priority that the Cuban administration puts in a health system that focuses on state paid care that places medical professionals in the communities and focuses on preventive health care, helping people be well, as opposed to “sick” care curing disease. At the same time, Cuban medical research centres have focused on developing vaccines for the many diseases that are particularly prevalent in tropical regions.
A small but growing number of U.S. citizens are travelling to Havana for a breakthrough new treatment for Alzheimer’s, Cuba’s NeuralCIM. Alzheimer’s is a disease that systematically destroys a person's memory, personality, and ability to function.
Cuban medical schools train medical personnel for Cuba and many countries of the Global South. Cuban medical professions assist in providing health care in many other countries. The metrics of live births and life expectancy have continuously improved in Cuba until the recent genocidal blockade of Cuba by the Trump Regime that has denied oil for generating electricity for refrigerators, water pumps, schools, and hospitals. Some of the increased deaths since the embargo have been in the neo-natal wards of hospitals.
The argument that the “Private Enterprise” health care favoured by many, including “Big Pharma” in the United States, may feel threatened by a lower cost, innovation focused, universally accessible, internationally celebrated, research and development based health system focused on the ideal that “health is a human right” deserves careful consideration.
The military strategists advising the Trump regime have renewed the 19th Century imperialism that the United States is the proper and destined governing influence in the American Hemisphere (Western Hemisphere) and that includes the Gulf of America (Gulf of Mexico). Under this imperialist resurgence, Cuba (and Canada) are territories that may exert influence on access to the United States much like Iran can influence access to Middle East countries by controlling the Strait of Hormuz. Unlike Iran, Canada and Mexico, have trade, social, commercial, resource, and military alliances with the United States that would make life more expensive for Americans if a “rupture” in relationships continues.
The imperialist promoters of American exceptionalism need to recall that the “melting pot” of the American Republic owes its exceptional position to the integration of people and ideas from all nations of the world. The history of empires that tried to reign from power and false notions of superiority is one of “Rise and Fall”.
