The draconian unilateral sanctions imposed on Cuba by the United States during the first Trump administration (2017-2021) and continued to date, have caused a dramatic increase in the island’s infant mortality rate (IMR) and a worsening humanitarian crisis, according to a new report issued by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, (CEPR), titled “U.S. Sanctions and the Sharp Rise in Infant Mortality in Cuba.” Cuba has been suffering the effects of the economic blockade imposed by the U.S. in 1962, during which it nonetheless was able to invest in developing its excellent healthcare system and maintain among the lowest IMR rates in the Western Hemisphere, 4.0 per 1,000 deaths—lower than the U.S. rate. But between 2018-2025, Cuba’s IMR rate soared by 148% to 9.9 per thousand as U.S. sanctions intensified. Think Gaza.
The murderous “maximum pressure” sanctions imposed by the Trump and the Biden administrations have completely dislocated the Cuban economy and disrupted normal government activities such as trade and tourism, especially affecting the delivery of healthcare services on which Cubans depend. In addition to closing off Cuba’s access to international financial markets, restricting foreign imports to the island, curbing remittances from family members in the U.S., and reinstating its designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, the Trump administration’s imposition of a fuel blockade on Jan. 29 of this year has produced a life-threatening humanitarian crisis, in which babies and children under age 5 are the immediate victims.
“The Trump policy of `maximum pressure’ on Cuba has killed a lot of babies … it’s highly likely that more babies are dying now, and at an even higher rate than last year, as a result of the fuel blockade,” says CEPR‘s Alexander Main, one of the report’s authors. Constant electricity blackouts have severely affected hospitals’ ability to keep neonatal and other medical equipment running. CEPR’s co-director Mark Weisbrot recently charged that the fuel blockade’s targeting of the civilian population constitutes a war crime under the 4th Geneva Convention, because the blockade is enforced militarily by the U.S. Coast Guard. Recall that U.S. sanctions imposed on Iraq in the 1990s resulted in the deaths of a half-million children, which then UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright concluded was “worth it.”
The report details how sanctions have reduced Cuba’s ability to earn foreign currency, as its tourist sector has significantly collapsed and its overseas medical missions in developing countries greatly declined, due to pressure and blackmail of host governments by the Trump administration. The rapidly deteriorating economic and social situation on the island “has taken a major toll on the Cuban people,” CEPR’s report states. “The human consequences of this decline include widespread undernourishment, a significant worsening of sanitary conditions, a rise in disease and sickness, and … an increase in deaths, particularly the deaths of infant children.” The decline in Cuba’s population is notable in this regard. Between 2020 and 2024, the population fell by 13%, from 11.2 million to 9.8 million in 2024. This rate is by far greater than all previous episodes of out-migration from Cuba.
