The Party for Socialism and Liberation has condemned a recent executive order signed by President Donald Trump targeting Cuba, calling it a false pretext for escalating economic pressure on the country and restating its demand for an immediate end to the U.S. blockade.
In a January 29 statement, the party responded to an emergency executive order issued by the Trump administration earlier that day declaring the Cuban government “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security and foreign policy. The order invokes emergency authorities to expand economic measures against Cuba and authorizes additional tariffs on countries that sell or provide oil to the island.
The PSL rejected the administration’s characterization of Cuba as a national security threat, dismissing the declaration as a deliberate intensification of U.S. policy aimed at regime change in the nation. The party called it a distraction from domestic policies of the Trump administration and a response to public backlash over “Trump’s brutal war on immigrants.”
The party argued that the order’s primary effect would potentially deepen economic hardship for Cuban civilians by further restricting access to oil, a resource already impacted by sanctions. It expressed concern that the order would burden Cuba’s “profoundly strained” electrical system by discouraging other countries from supplying oil through the threat of U.S. tariffs.
“This is the brutal logic of the U.S. blockade – cause as much suffering as possible among the population of Cuba, and hope that this leads to an internal crisis that allows the U.S. government to achieve its long-standing goal of overthrowing the country’s socialist system,” the party stated. “It is both an act of great cruelty and an outrageous violation of Cuba’s sovereignty.”
According to the text of the order, it also authorizes senior U.S. officials to monitor Cuba’s activities and recommend additional measures under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the National Emergencies Act. It specifically targets countries with economic ties to Cuba, including China, Russia, and Iran, a move which the PSL said infringes on those nations’ sovereignty and right to choose trading partners.
The PSL warned that the order is part of a broader pattern of U.S. imperialism in Latin America, pointing to a previous emergency designation issued against the nearby country of Venezuela during the Obama administration, which it said later became a gateway for the Trump administration’s seizure and detention of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on federal charges in New York earlier this year.
Calling the currently existing blockade “cruel and illegal,” the PSL cited figures estimating that U.S. sanctions cost Cuba $7.6 billion in economic losses last year alone, with cumulative damages reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars over decades, which the party said has directly impacted access to food, medicine, and other basic necessities. The statement urged U.S. citizens to oppose economic violence against Cuba and other countries in the region, arguing that relations with Cuba have normalized, which can be seen in both public opinion and in the positions of some elected officeholders.
“Working people in the United States should oppose the Trump administration’s policy of economic strangulation against Cuba and all throughout Latin America,” the party urged. “This has nothing to do with ‘threats’ to the United States – it is solely about enriching corporate executives by facilitating the plunder of the people and resources of the hemisphere.”
When the US e.g. seizes Cuba-bound oil tankers, that’s a blockade-type activity.
The business as usual of the last six decades has been an embargo, not a blockade.