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Maximum Pressure and the Cuban American Majority
Who Pays the Price?
Guillermo J. Grenier
Ask Cuban Americans whether Washington should squeeze Havana harder and most say yes. The 2026 FIU Cuba Poll, which surveyed 1,004 of them, asked the question four ways, and each way produced a majority. Sixty-one percent favor continuing the sixty-four-year-old economic embargo. Sixty-five percent support the oil blockade. Seventy-three percent favor U.S. military action against the Cuban government. Seventy-seven percent want Washington to emphasize maximum pressure, and 63 percent say so strongly (Grenier and Lai 2026).
Read those numbers as a ladder of pain, with support climbing as the rungs get steeper. The embargo is the bottom rung and the oldest. Support for it stood at 60 percent in 2007, fell to a low of 34 percent during the Obama years, and has climbed back to today’s 61.
The embargo has gone more than sixty years without changing the government, and the community’s support never…
