On Tuesday, United States President Donald Trump had a good laugh with members of the press in the US state of Iowa as he issued a rather serious decree regarding the short-term future of Cuba: “Cuba will be failing pretty soon. Cuba is really a nation that’s very close to failing.”

To be sure, this is not the first time that Trump has predicted the downfall of the Caribbean island nation, which the US has effectively been trying to destroy for no fewer than 67 years – ever since the triumph in 1959 of Cuba’s communist revolution that overthrew the brutal right-wing dictator and US buddy Fulgencio Batista.

One would hope, then, that other countries – particularly the self-declared allies of Cuba – might step up to defend the island against US predations or at least credibly register their opposition to imperial impunity.

Instead, all Cuba has really gotten are some perfunctory professions of support – such as from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who, like her ostensibly leftist predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has perfected the art of pretending to counter US machinations while doing exactly what the gringos want.

Now, just as the struggle has become more critical than ever, it remains to be seen whether any of Cuba’s professed allies will stick their necks out to keep the country from “failing”.

In the event it does fail – and Trump manages to swing regime change in a place that has resisted for so long against all odds – it’s safe to say that nowhere is safe from imperial designs.