Abraham Rodríguez stares at the corn furrows he must plough before the end of the day. It is not even noon in Artemisa, Cuba, but the sun beats down hard and he’s already tired: working the land is a tough job. He has done it for almost half his life, since he was 13 and his mother got a divorce. He is turning 26 this year.

Farming has always been hard, he says, but now it is almost impossible to sustain. “I make 1,200 pesos (£1.80) a day, so I have to work two days to buy a bottle of oil.”

It has been weeks since he ate meat. His last meal, last night, was a dish of white rice and fried banana. “Breakfast? What’s that?” he says.

Not so long ago, he could spend part of his salary on eating out once a week, but after Covid, he says, everything changed for the worse. Now, he wouldn’t mind a US intervention, “as long as it’s for the better”.