The tentacles of the US blockade on Cuba reach far beyond the state’s borders. In Australia, fundraising efforts to supply vital medical resources to Cuba have been blocked.

For the last three years, the Australia Cuba Friendship Society (ACFS) has carried out the fundraising campaign ‘From Australia to Cuba with Love’, in which participants raise funds by running, cycling, walking or dancing their way through the equivalent distance between Australia and Cuba (almost 15,000km). The campaign started in Queensland and later became national, running for six weeks every year in June and July. It is an opportunity for ACFS to financially support health and sustainability projects in Cuba while informing the general Australian public about the blockade. Over $40,000 has been raised in previous campaigns. The 2025 campaign aimed to finance supplies for hospitals in Cuba, but has been cut short when the online financial service Stripe – a US/Irish multinational e-commerce platform which alongside Paypal became the financial platform behind almost all fundraising and shopping websites worldwide – refused to allow the use of its services. The campaign has previously received funds through Stripe. Now Stripe shut down the campaign’s account, saying it would transfer all the funds back to the donors.

Stripe’s decision to restrict access to its services is potentially due to anti-Cuban rhetoric and the new policies that emerged after the Trump administration took power in 2025. After ACFS demanded answers, they responded with a letter pictured below and at the ACFS’ Facebook page.

The letter is ludicrous, but it is worth highlighting there is no legal basis for restricting these financial operations in Australia, which does not have a sanctions program against Cuba. Australia is also among the countries that annually vote in the general assembly of the United Nations for the end of the US blockade on Cuba, which has become almost ritualistic. Over a hundred countries vote to end the blockade annually, with usually only the US and Israel voting against. Despite this, nothing is done about it, and the Cuban people continue to suffer.

However, what this situation hides is that with numerous industries, particularly e-commerce, in the hands of companies based in or controlled by the United States, US restrictions on trade with Cuba impact countries like Australia and their citizens. Despite Australia’s words of solidarity to Cuba, it allows the extraterritorial application of the blockade to take place here.

The tightening of the US blockade on Cuba

The US first imposed its sanctions on Cuba in 1960, drastically reducing its agreed sugar quota as a reaction to the policies of Cuba’s 1959 Revolution. Just five months after the victory of the Revolution, in May 1959, the revolutionary government introduced the First Agrarian Reforms, redistributing lands to the peasants who worked them. Cuba’s revolution sought to nationalise resources for the benefit of the whole of society, to overcome the chronic unemployment, poverty and underdevelopment imposed on it by centuries of colonial and imperialist exploitation.

This was unacceptable to the US: it was a direct threat as US businesses controlled 40% of Cuba’s sugar industry and an indirect threat as Cuba became an example to people around the world being exploited and oppressed by imperialism. Since 1960 the US continued to tighten its blockade against Cuba including restricting international trade, travel, remittances and effectively blocking Cuba from accessing international financial systems. It is the longest-running unilateral blockade in modern history, designed to strangle the Cuban economy and to force the Cuban people into submission.

The US further intensified its blockade in 1990 and more recently under the Trump administration. It has become increasingly difficult to import basic medical supplies such as insulin, key components for infrastructure construction and even braille machines for special education schools. In Cuba, it is effectively impossible to utilise the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) financial system as it is mostly controlled by American companies, with access restricted by the embargo. It makes international credit and debit cards useless in Cuba. Conducting usual internet banking procedures will often require the use of a VPN.

An important mechanism of the blockade, implemented by the US, is to place Cuba in the state sponsor of terrorism list. Cuba was added to the list in 1982, giving the US the perfect excuse to sanction the country and its companies. This list has included Iraq, Yemen, North Korea and various other countries. Cuba was removed from the list at the end of the Obama’s administration in 2015. The country was placed back on the list by Trump in 2020. Biden did not change it until the last days of his administration. This was then overturned by Trump on his first day in office in 2025. In June 2025 the Trump administration announced it was imposing further measures on Cuba including increased travel restrictions to stop tourism and the movement of capital to Cuba through family members delivering remittances in person, which are important sources of income to many Cubans.

Stopping international direct money transfers has been one of the focuses of the US blockade in the last decade. Cuban financial institutions have handled progressively less money every year since 2020. In 2023, it was assessed that 130 different international banks refused to deal with Cuba for different reasons. The return of Cuba to the state sponsored terrorist list by the US opened the door for many Cuban companies to be added to the ‘Cuban Restricted List’ and directly sanctioned.

The two Cuban companies that have partnered with Western Union to facilitate sending remittances to Cuba have been sanctioned – FINCIMEX in 2020 and Orbit SA in February 2025 (which subsequently stopped remittances indefinitely). While Western Union may be directly unable to continue its services to the Cuban population, other financial institutions operate from a ‘risk averse’ perspective where they perceive that anything associated to Cuba, even if not involving a restricted company, can result in slower transactions, more costly operations (as usual systems cannot be used). Some preemptively boycott financial transactions associated to Cuba to avoid being eventually subject to sanctions or US pressure. This seems to be what happened with Stripe.

There are no blockades imposed by the Australian government, nor is ACFS a Cuban organisation or a group on a restricted list of any kind. However, Stripe apparently decided it was too risky to allow a campaign with ‘Cuba’ in its name. International companies can operate in Australia with impunity and can behave in a discriminatory way without penalties.

The US will never forgive Cuba for their revolution, and Cuba’s fight for self-determination and its message of socialism are a direct challenge to US hegemony in Latin America. The US will not rest until they quash the example of Cuban independence. For the US to lift the blockade and remove the sanctions, Cuba must become a vassal state of the US, subject to privatisation and austerity.

The survival of socialist Cuba depends on the action of many, including us in Australia. While our government is complicit in the illegal blockade which seeks to destroy Cuban socialism and sovereignty, it is our job to dismantle the stranglehold of the blockade. For now, ACFS is looking for an alternative platform to run its campaign, while continuing to raise consciousness around the blockade and its impacts. Red Spark remains committed in its collaboration with ACFS and to supporting the revolutionary people of Cuba.