Original article: Bad Bunny: Buen vecino
By Michelle Ellner
In a captivating 13-minute performance on one of the most watched stages in American culture, Bad Bunny created an atmosphere in the U.S. that felt expansive, vibrant, and pulsating with Caribbean rhythms, fostering a sense of belonging that transcended borders without seeking permission.
As a Venezuelan-American, I felt chills from the very first second to the last. I was transported back to my childhood, nestled on two chairs set together at a family gathering that refused to end, where the music played on, adults laughed heartily in the background, and grandparents were engrossed in a game of dominoes as if nothing else mattered. I could sense the dancing in the room, smell the food that took all day to prepare, and recall that profound feeling of unity that defies explanation or translation; it’s something you simply grow up within.
And then came Bad Bunny’s conclusion: loud, defiant, and unmistakably intentional.
When he proclaimed, «God bless America,» naming countries such as Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, Guyana, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, the Antilles, the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico, it felt as though he was calling family into the room, reminding everyone that the United States has always been bigger than the comfortable version embraced by those in power, and that it has always belonged to more people than those willing to treat them with dignity.
At that very moment, behind the scenes, the U.S. government was tightening the screws on Cuba.
Under the Trump administration, U.S. policy toward the island has shifted from prolonged hostility to what resembles an open siege. Sanctions have intensified, the fuel supply has been deliberately cut, and third countries have been threatened with tariffs and sanctions for daring to trade with Cuba.
The immediate consequences are devastating: persistent blackouts paralyze hospitals, universities are forced to suspend classes, factories and farms are unable to operate, and entire transportation systems are brought to a halt. The U.S. fuel blockade has grounded flights, disrupted bus service, and forced rationing of ambulances.
The U.S. embargo on Cuba is deemed illegal under international law and condemned year after year by an overwhelming majority of the world’s nations. Yet, the U.S. continues to enforce it unilaterally, deploying its navy, financial system, and political influence to prevent oil shipments from reaching Cuba, intimidate shipping companies, and punish any nation that dares to trade.
This American pressure does not stop at its borders; it extends beyond, indicating to the rest of the world who they may sell fuel to, whom they can insure, and what economies must comply. When ships are blocked, oil supplies are cut, and civilian populations are plunged into darkness, this constitutes a blockade. According to international law, it amounts to an act of war.
The U.S. then claims humanitarian concern, offering tightly controlled aid packages, all while maintaining the same sanctions that created the emergency. The crisis is first manufactured and then used as proof that Cuba is «failing.» Scarcity becomes both the method and the message. It’s a form of collective punishment, designed to wear down a population into submission through hunger, darkness, and isolation.
Let’s be honest: this isn’t solely a Trump issue.
Trump is blunt, rude, and unapologetic, but he didn’t invent it. For decades, U.S. administrations have treated Latin America and the Caribbean as a sphere to be managed, disciplined, or reordered, operating under the same premise: that the U.S. has the providential right to decide who governs and whom to punish to ensure compliance.
But ask yourself, reflect seriously: can you imagine the humiliation of entire nations being told repeatedly that their futures will be decided elsewhere? Imagine living under the constant threat of strangulation of your economy, of leaders being ousted, of your people starving simply for refusing to obey. Who gave the U.S. this right? Who decided that Latin American sovereignty is conditional?
Two centuries ago, Simón Bolívar warned that the United States seemed destined to «plague America with misery in the name of freedom.» His vision was not one of domination but of dignity: free nations determining their own paths, united by solidarity rather than submission. Our America, the America envisioned by José Martí, Simón Bolívar, Augusto Sandino, Frantz Fanon, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chávez, is land, people, language, and resistance that still exist and assert their sovereignty.
This is the choice before us. You can accept Trump’s America, the America that rules through sieges, blockades, sanctions, and humiliation, deciding from afar who can govern, who can eat, and who must be punished into submission. Or you can support Our America, the America that Martí and Bolívar imagined, which Bad Bunny echoed while holding an American football emblazoned with the phrase «Together We Are America.»
The latter is an America that rejects domination, that believes no nation is a backyard, and insists that the future of this hemisphere belongs to its peoples, not to an empire. There is no neutral ground between these two Americas.
This moment calls for more than applause. It demands that we look beyond the spectacle and confront the systems that determine who thrives and who is forced to flee. A true Good Neighbor Policy would respect sovereignty, cease to weaponize hunger and instability, and recognize that dignity does not end at the U.S. border.
Bad Bunny reminded millions of people of the connection, the shared humanity, a hemisphere united by history and responsibility. What comes next is our responsibility. If those 13 minutes meant anything, they must drive us to demand a foreign policy that treats our neighbors as equals. Because, in the end, the message is simple and unyielding: the only thing more powerful than hatred is love.
(*) Michelle Ellner is the Latin America campaign coordinator for CODEPINK. She was born in Venezuela and holds a degree in Languages and International Relations from La Sorbonne Paris IV.