President Trump recently mused about “taking” Cuba for himself: “It may be a friendly takeover, it may not be a friendly takeover… It wouldn’t matter because they’re really, they’re down to, as I say, fumes.”
Devoid of the neighborly love Quaker faith calls all people to, the administration has been tightening the United States’ six decade-long embargo on Cuba with sanctions upon sanctions. Today, the Cuban people are in their fifth month of a fuel blockade.
Devastatingly, this blockade is putting hospitals out of function and causing preventable deaths, including of newborns, similar to the fuel blockade in Palestine. Calling for sanctions to be lifted, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights declared that infant mortality has doubled, survival rates of children with cancer have decreased, and food production has dropped by 60% since the U.S. imposed its most recent blockade at the end of January.
“We pray that every decision may be guided not by narrow interests, but by life; not by ideologies, but by dignity; not by power, but by love.”
- Cuban Friends
Reps. Jonathan Jackson (IL-1) and Pramila Jayapal (WA-7) recently visited the island and reported on the destructive impacts of the recent blockade, decrying an “assault on the basic infrastructure of Cuba, designed to inflict collective punishment on the civilian population by manufacturing a humanitarian crisis.”
A blockade, under international and domestic law, is an act of war. The United States military has also continued the threats and intimidation by building up military assets in the Caribbean Sea near the island.
Other U.S. government actions, including the criminal indictment of the country’s former leader, mirror the ramp-up toward the invasion of another country early this year—Venezuela. All signs indicate that the Trump administration is gearing up for military action against Cuba during or immediately after they “finish” their war against Iran.
Congress must take urgent and swift action to forestall a new unlawful and immoral war against Cuba. Members of Congress have already begun to step up, with Rep. Nydia Velázquez (NY-7) and Sen. Tim Kaine (VA) introducing war powers resolutions to end U.S. hostilities within or against Cuba, and Rep. Jayapal offering a bill prohibiting the use of taxpayer funds to use military force against Cuba. Congress should pass these measures into law.
The president does not have any inherent authority to invade countries from Cuba to Iran nor to build new neo-imperialist governance from Venezuela to Palestine.
Only Congress has the constitutional power to declare war. The president does not have any inherent authority to invade countries from Cuba to Iran nor to build new neo-imperialist governance from Venezuela to Palestine. It is Congress’ responsibility to enforce the legal boundaries and to represent their constituents, the vast majority of whom oppose war with Cuba.
Congress also has the potential to change one of the United States’ most harmful and outdated foreign policies – the original embargo against Cuba dating from 1962. Rep. Jim McGovern (MA-2) and Sen. Ron Wyden (OR) have introduced the bicameral U.S.-Cuba Trade Act (H.R. 7521 / S. 136) to lift the decades-long trade embargo and begin to normalize relations once again between Cuba and the United States.
With Friends in Cuba, “We pray that every decision may be guided not by narrow interests, but by life; not by ideologies, but by dignity; not by power, but by love.”
