The year reaches its first 33 days and seems destined to be one of the toughest tests we will face as a nation. We do not exaggerate in the slightest. The current United States government has grown bold to levels of pressure and blockade that are not science fiction. The responsibility will fall on the Cuban people not only to remain calm in making decisions during critical moments but also to have the capacity to prepare for the worst economic, political, social, and military scenario that an adversary obsessed with the revolutionary example just 90 miles away could devise.
There are no days of relaxation ahead. The media war, which aims to set the stage for internal collapse when fuel becomes insufficient for electricity, transportation, food production, the economy, and daily life in our countryside and cities, has already lasted too long and is too intense.
And against so much malice, voices will appear—as they have already begun to emerge—calling to negotiate, to sit down at a table. But it has not been Cuba that has broken chairs and tables in these 67 years—it has been them, wanting to impose on us a false democracy they have no right to dictate, because we have been free, independent, and sovereign since January 1, 1959, when we stepped out from under their boots and claws with a triumphant and popular Revolution.
José Martí fought for and defined a Homeland "of all and for the good of all," but without foreign interference; without economic strangulation because of an ideological position opposed to the most powerful and overwhelming imperialism that has ever existed; without the shadow of the United States guiding any path over our shoulders.
Every hour, every day, every week, every month of this 2026 points to a challenge for life. Fidel said it clearly and precisely: "We do not like being threatened." And of course, no one wishes to die, but to work and move forward through our own efforts. Anything that prevents this is an attack on the Homeland. To be more Cuban every day is to defend ourselves as mambises and rebels, with rifles and ideas—and with the certainty that, like them: We will overcome!
