Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Democratic Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar, publicly defended her visit to Cuba on Sunday, posting on social media that she was "honored to be here" and "honored to make history" while standing in "solidarity with the Cuban people." Her mother reposted the message on X.
As reported by Newsweek, the visit comes as President Donald Trump has publicly floated the idea of "taking Cuba in some form," signed an executive order threatening tariffs on any country that exports fuel to the island, and as Cuba spirals through repeated nationwide blackouts throughout March. The timing is not subtle. Neither is the message.
Hirsi responded to a New York Post X post calling the trip "tone-deaf" with a full-throated defense of her presence on the island:
"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."
Note the framing. The Cuban people's suffering isn't caused by more than six decades of communist mismanagement. It's caused by the "oppressive blockade exacerbated by the trump administration." The regime that has impoverished its own citizens, jailed dissidents, and crushed basic freedoms for generations gets a pass. The American president gets the blame.
This is the analytical framework of the American progressive left in miniature: solidarity with the regime's preferred narrative, delivered from the regime's preferred soil, with the regime's preferred villain clearly identified.
Rep. Ilhan Omar is 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!"
Omar was elected to represent Minnesota's 5th congressional district in 2019 after serving in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2017 to 2019. She is the first Somali American and the first of two Muslim women elected to Congress, alongside Rashida Tlaib. Her political brand has always been confrontational, particularly toward Republican foreign policy. Reposting her daughter's message from Cuba fits the pattern.
What's worth pausing on is the substance of what Hirsi is actually endorsing. She traveled to Cuba during an active energy crisis, stood alongside people "from across the globe" there to protest American policy, and called it an honor. She didn't mention:
Solidarity, apparently, is selective.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel posted a lengthy statement on X framing the United States as an aggressor bent on regime change. The rhetoric was characteristically defiant:
"They intend and announce plans to seize the country, its resources, its properties, and even the very economy they seek to strangle to make us surrender. Only in this way can the fierce economic war be explained, which is applied as collective punishment against the entire people. In the face of the worst scenario, #Cuba is accompanied by a certainty: any external aggressor will clash with an impregnable resistance."
Cuba's deputy foreign minister said on 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." Havana has said its military is actively preparing for the "possibility of military aggression" from the United States.
This is the government Isra Hirsi traveled to stand beside. A government that responds to its own people's blackouts not with accountability but with military posturing and anti-American propaganda. The lights are off across the island, and the regime's answer is to rattle sabers and welcome sympathetic foreigners who will parrot its line about American cruelty.
President Trump has been direct about his posture toward Cuba. Last week from the Oval Office, he stated:
"I do believe I'll be having the honor of taking Cuba. That's a big honor. Taking Cuba in some form. 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."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has publicly signaled support for leadership change in Havana. The executive order on fuel tariffs is designed to squeeze the regime's access to the resources it needs to maintain its grip. The strategy is pressure, applied openly and without apology.
This is what makes Hirsi's visit politically charged beyond the personal. She isn't a private citizen on vacation. She is the daughter of a sitting member of Congress, traveling to a country that the United States is actively pressuring, posting public statements that directly echo that country's government talking points, and framing American foreign policy as oppression. Her mother, a congresswoman, amplified the message.
The progressive left has a long tradition of expressing "solidarity" with authoritarian regimes, provided those regimes position themselves against the United States. Cuba has been a favorite destination for this kind of political tourism for decades. The formula is always the same: arrive on the island, blame the embargo for every failure of communism, pose alongside regime-approved events, and return home to lecture Americans about imperialism.
The Cuban people, meanwhile, sit in the dark. Their blackouts aren't caused by American tariffs on fuel exports. The energy infrastructure has been crumbling for years under a government that has prioritized regime survival over basic services. The embargo is a convenient villain, but communist economies don't fail because of external pressure alone. They fail because central planning fails. Every time.
If Hirsi wanted to express genuine solidarity with the Cuban people, she might start by acknowledging that their government is the primary author of their misery. She might call for free elections, press freedom, or the release of political prisoners. She did none of that. Instead, she called it an honor to stand against American policy on Cuban soil.
Rep. Omar reposted it. The Cuban regime couldn't have scripted it better themselves.