US President Donald Trump is trying to induce a famine in Cuba. Mass starvation and human suffering in Cuba is the goal of Trump’s latest ‘emergency’ Executive Order preventing Cuba, an island nation, from importing oil or any energy sources needed to survive. It is a cynical and crude ploy to distract public opinion from the issues at home that are eliciting mass public dissent, and as we’ve seen with Venezuela, a precursor to an illegal military attack.

We, along with millions of people in the United States and around the world, reject this inhumane act against the people of Cuba. This is not a policy of national security; it is a deliberate act of economic warfare aimed at strangling an entire population.

President Barack Obama initiated an important effort to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba. The two countries reopened their embassies after they had been closed for 50 years. People across the United States, Cuba, and the entire Western Hemisphere greeted this as a welcome end to the anachronistic Cold War policies that had dominated the relationship. 

But Trump has reversed the path that the Obama administration began. His January 29 Executive Order labels Cuba an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat’ to the United States. This is obviously false, but it provides a pretext to impose severe economic penalties on any country that attempts to deliver oil or trade with Cuba.

The consequences of the new Executive Order will be measured in human suffering:

• Families will be left without power for light, refrigeration, and cooking.

• Hospitals will face impossible choices, risking the closure of wards and the suspension of critical treatments.

• The distribution of food and medicine will be paralyzed.

• The most vulnerable—children, the elderly, and the sick—will bear the brunt of this cruelty.

This policy is unconscionable. It deepens a humanitarian crisis of our own making. Cuba poses no threat to the United States. Starving a population into submission is not diplomacy; it is a form of terrorism.

We call on all people of conscience to reject this cruelty and demand an immediate end to the blockade. For over 30 years, the UN General Assembly has voted annually, with an overwhelming majority, to condemn the US embargo on Cuba. Trump must carry out his foreign policy with respect to the wishes of the people of the United States and in accordance with international law. 

We, the people of the United States, want to have normal relations with Cuba, treat Cuba with equality and respect, and most importantly to see Cuba and the Cuban people as our neighbors and not our enemies.

Let Cuba Live! Cuba is not a Threat!