Isra Hirsi, daughter of Democratic Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar, took to social media on Sunday to publicly celebrate her presence in Cuba, framing the trip as an act of solidarity against American policy. Omar then reposted her daughter's message on X, amplifying it to her own audience.
Newsweek reported that Hirsi's post came as a direct response to a New York Post X post that characterized her trip as "tone-deaf." She was not apologetic:
"yes i am in cuba! people are here from across the globe to express solidarity with the Cuban people. people who are standing against the oppressive blockade exacerbated by the trump administration. i am honored to be here. i am honored to make history and Eid Mubarak to all."
There's a particular kind of confidence that comes from growing up in a household where America is always the villain. Hirsi has it in abundance.
Cuba has endured repeated nationwide blackouts throughout March. Its economy is in freefall. Its people live under one of the last surviving communist dictatorships in the Western Hemisphere.
And the response from Hirsi and those traveling with her is not to stand with the Cuban people demanding freedom. It's to stand with the regime's narrative that American pressure is the real problem.
This is the familiar inversion. The country that maintains a one-party state, jails dissidents, and controls its press is cast as the victim. The country whose policy aims to weaken that grip is cast as the oppressor. Hirsi didn't travel to Cuba to visit political prisoners. She went to "express solidarity" with a framing that serves the interests of the people holding those prisoners.
The word "blockade" does a lot of heavy lifting in her post. The United States maintains an embargo on Cuba, a policy with decades of bipartisan support rooted in the regime's refusal to grant basic freedoms to its own citizens.
Calling it a "blockade" adopts Havana's language wholesale, suggesting a military siege rather than a set of trade restrictions tied to human rights conditions Cuba refuses to meet.
None of this exists in a vacuum. Rep. Omar has been one of Trump's most vocal critics in Congress. During Trump's 2026 State of the Union address, she shouted from the House floor:
"That's a lie! You're a liar!"
That's the family's register when it comes to this administration. So Hirsi's trip to Cuba, timed as President Trump ramps up pressure on Havana, reads less like humanitarian concern and more like political theater with a passport.
Omar reposting her daughter's statement was not incidental. It was an endorsement. The congresswoman chose to amplify a message that frames American foreign policy as oppression while Cuba's government crushes its own people under rolling blackouts and economic collapse. The priorities are clarifying, if nothing else.
President Trump has publicly floated the idea of "taking Cuba in some form." He told reporters on Saturday:
"Whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it, if you want to know the truth. They are a very weakened nation right now."
Trump also signed an executive order threatening tariffs on any country that exports fuel to Cuba, a move designed to tighten the economic vise on a regime already struggling to keep the lights on. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has publicly signaled support for leadership change in Havana.
Cuba's deputy foreign minister told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that regime change was "absolutely" off the table and that Cuba "would not accept to become a vassal state."
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel posted his own defiant statement on X, warning that "any external aggressor will clash with an impregnable resistance" while simultaneously acknowledging the "harsh limitations of the weakened economy."
Díaz-Canel's statement is worth reading carefully. He attributes Cuba's economic devastation entirely to American policy, describing it as "collective punishment against the entire people."
What he does not mention is seven decades of communist central planning, state seizure of private enterprise, and the systematic suppression of the economic freedom that drives prosperity everywhere it's permitted. The embargo didn't build Cuba's system. Cuba's system built Cuba's misery.
Cubans are living through blackouts. They cannot feed their families reliably. They risk imprisonment for speaking against their government.
And into this suffering walks a group of international visitors declaring themselves "honored" to be there, not to document the repression, not to advocate for the dissidents, but to denounce the country that represents the only real external pressure on their jailers.
This is what "solidarity" looks like when your politics are shaped entirely by opposition to your own country. You don't ask what the Cuban people actually want.
You don't notice that when Cubans risk their lives on rafts, they paddle toward the United States, not away from it. You show up, take the photo, post the statement, and fly home to a country whose freedoms you take for granted while defending a government that grants none of them.
Hirsi said she was honored to make history. The Cuban people have been living inside that history for more than six decades. They would like it to end.
