By Pedro Pablo Cortés
Cubans in the United States are accelerating shipments of food and medicine to their families in the face of the worsening crisis on the island, where they depend on this aid to survive, but they express to EFE their support for President Donald Trump to increase restrictions so that “the regime falls.”
Dozens of exiles line up with boxes and bags with food, toilet paper and more basic supplies at shipping companies in Miami’s Little Havana, motivated by energy cuts in Cuba and the feeling that things will evolve quickly, like Manuela Labori, who sends help to her 90-year-old mother.
“What she is eating is for the children she has here, of which there are three of us, and we have to send the medicines she uses from here. She can’t even walk because her knees are (damaged), she has already eaten the cartilage, the bone, and in the hospitals there is nothing to give her relief or (perform) surgery,” she tells EFE.
The UN Human Rights Office warned this Friday that Washington “fails” to comply with international law with the sanctions it decreed in January to prevent the supply of oil to Cuba, which is causing the “dismantling” of the food, health and water supply system.
UN experts condemn the fuel blockade on Cuba imposed by the US
But Labori, with more than 40 years in Florida, considers Trump’s measures “very good” and asks for more, even if that means no longer sending help to his family.
Cubans depend on donations from the US
U.S. humanitarian donations to Cuba almost doubled in 2025, with an estimated value of $130.9 million compared to $67.8 million the previous year, including food, medicine and clothing, according to a report from the United States-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.
Although many on the island “greatly depend” on exile, former political prisoner Ángel de la Fana, leader of the Los Plantados group, points out that “the vast majority do not have relatives in exile who can send them help.”
“(We must) increase pressure because it is not enough for us in exile to be able to send help to the family. What we need is for the Cuban people to be free, to have the freedom to be able to create wealth, to be able to create food,” he maintains.
Cuban-American legislators in Florida have asked Trump to prohibit the sending of remittances to Cuba, flights and licenses of companies “with business with the regime,” while the cities of Miami and Hialeah are investigating hundreds of companies with possible ties to the Cuban government, including parcel companies.
José Daniel Ferrer, a Cuban opposition leader who arrived in the United States last October, believes that “the shipment of “basic supplies” such as “food, medicine and hygiene products” “should still be allowed” because “many need them,” but asks to prohibit other “luxury, entertainment or pleasure” items.
Some Cubans express fear
On a tour of several shipping agencies, service employees and immigrants refused to speak with EFE for fear of reprisals from the Cuban government or US authorities.
Others, like Usmara Matamoros, fear that the United States restrictions will not bring changes on the island and will only mean that their relatives will be left without the supplies they send from Miami.
“No, I don’t agree because you can imagine how they are going to live,” he told EFE. “They are nothing without us.”
Some others send what they can regardless of the political context or whether there are requests for help, like Teresa Martínez, who sends “medicine, rice, milk, everything that can be food” every time she has the opportunity.
“They don’t ask me, I send them because I know they need everything and there are two little children that I send them every month,” she says through tears.
