August 28, 2026
The Alliance for Cuba Engagement and Respect (ACERE) alerts that the Trump administration is already engaged in hostilities against Cuba. Over the last eight months, this administration has imposed an increasingly comprehensive economic and energy blockade, used threats and military pressure to deter vessels from delivering fuel to Cuba, imposed sweeping sanctions and secondary sanctions on practically all companies doing business with the island, and repeatedly threatened direct military intervention and regime change.
The Congress’ renewed effort to invoke the War Powers Resolution over Cuba is not simply an attempt to prevent a future war—it is an effort to stop an undeclared war that has already begun. Senators Tim Kaine, Adam Schiff, and Ruben Gallego, and Representatives Nidia Velázquez, Gregory Meeks, Jim McGovern and Joaquin Castro, have correctly recognized that these actions raise precisely the constitutional questions that the War Powers Resolution was designed to address.[1] Under U.S. law, the War Powers Resolution requires the “collective judgment” of Congress and the President before U.S. armed forces are introduced into hostilities or circumstances in which imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated. It also makes clear that presidential authority to introduce U.S. forces into hostilities rests on a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization, or an emergency created by an attack on the United States.[2] Congress therefore has a constitutional responsibility to act—not merely before bombs fall on Havana, but while U.S. military forces are already being used to enforce coercive measures against Cuba.[3]
International law makes the stakes even clearer. A genuine naval blockade is not simply another economic sanction: it is a military operation that prevents vessels from entering or leaving a country’s ports. The International Committee of the Red Cross notes that the establishment and enforcement of an effective naval or air blockade may itself constitute an “act of war” sufficient to trigger an international armed conflict under the Geneva Conventions.[4] The United Nations Charter prohibits states from using force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state, except under recognized exceptions such as self-defense or Security Council authorization.[5] Cuba has not attacked the United States, and there is no Security Council authorization for the use of force against Cuba. What is unfolding therefore deserves to be treated as a matter of war powers and international peace and security, not merely as another round of economic sanctions. The United States government itself recognized this principle in a 1962 Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel opinion concerning Cuba, which stated that a blockade “could be regarded” as an act of war and discussed the serious constitutional implications of imposing one without congressional authorization.[6]
The Trump administration’s coercive measures against Cuba are therefore not appropriately characterized as just ordinary peacetime “sanctions” because its economic pressure is backed by military threats and maritime enforcement designed to prevent Cuba from receiving essential fuel. While the precise legal characterization of the present “energy blockade” and secondary sanctions remains contested —particularly because much of the pressure operates through sanctions and threats rather than a formally declared naval blockade— the combination of coercive economic measures, maritime interdiction, and threatened military action has crossed a threshold that Congress cannot responsibly ignore.
The consequences of this undeclared war are already being felt by ordinary Cubans. Cuba’s economy is projected by Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) to contract by 10.3 percent in 2026.[7] Infant mortality has almost doubled in the last year.[8] Although Cuba’s economic crisis cannot responsibly be attributed exclusively to U.S. policy—domestic economic weaknesses, the pandemic, declining tourism, demographic changes, and other external shocks have also played major roles—the intensification of U.S. sanctions has made access to fuel, financing, foreign trade, transportation, and essential imports substantially more difficult and costly, if not impossible altogether. Similarly, a growth in preventable deaths cannot be entirely attributed to U.S. policy, but international research provides compelling reason to take the humanitarian consequences of sanctions seriously.[9] A policy deliberately designed to deprive a population of fuel and other essential goods and economic inputs cannot be dismissed as cost-free diplomacy simply because it stops short of conventional bombing. In fact, direct observers have described Cuba as a “silent Gaza.”[10]
The United States must not wait for the first missile to fall before admitting that the country is already on a path to war with Cuba. ACERE calls on Congress to recognize the administration’s current military and economic campaign for what it is: an escalation toward—and, in important respects, an exercise of—hostilities against another sovereign state without a congressional authorization for war. Congress should pass the Cuba War Powers Resolution, prohibit the use of U.S. armed forces to enforce the blockade or conduct hostilities against Cuba without explicit congressional authorization, and exercise its constitutional authority over war and peace. The administration should immediately end the fuel blockade and coercive measures designed to prevent third countries from supplying Cuba, and it should replace the policy of economic strangulation with direct diplomatic engagement. The United States can disagree profoundly with the Cuban government without waging war on the Cuban people. The time for Congress to stop this war is not after military strikes begin. It is now.
For more information, contact: allianceforcuba@acere.org .
Notes:
[1] “ACERE Lauds Introduction of Privileged War Powers Resolutions to Prevent Unauthorized Military Action in Cuba,” May 30, 2026 https://acere.org/acere-lauds-introduction-of-privileged-war-powers-resolutions-to-prevent-unauthorized-military-action-in-cuba/
[2] War Powers Resolution, 50 U.S.C. §§ 1541–1547, https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=%28title%3A50+section%3A1541+edition%3Aprelim .The statute states that Congress and the President must share responsibility for introducing U.S. armed forces into hostilities and limits presidential authority to a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization, or a national emergency created by an attack on the United States or its armed forces.
[3] “The war in Cuba has already begun,” Lee Schlenker, August 14, 2026, https://thehill.com/opinion/international/6027922-senate-cuba-war-powers-resolution/
[4] International Committee of the Red Cross, Commentary on Article 2 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (2025), https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/article-2/commentary/2025 . The ICRC states that the declaration, establishment, and enforcement of an effective naval or air blockade may constitute an “act of war” and may be sufficient to initiate an international armed conflict to which international humanitarian law applies.
[5] United Nations Charter, Article 2(4). Article 2(4) prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state, subject principally to the Charter’s provisions concerning Security Council authorization and self-defense. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/
[6] U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, “Legal and Practical Consequences of a Blockade of Cuba,” October 19, 1962, https://www.justice.gov/olc/opinion/legal-and-practical-consequences-blockade-cuba . The OLC concluded that the President possessed certain domestic authority to establish a blockade but specifically acknowledged that a blockade of Cuba could be regarded by Cuba and other states as an act of war and raised the constitutional question of Congress’s authority over declarations of war.
[7] Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC/CEPAL) https://repositorio.cepal.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/0b10ebba-77b7-49e1-b77c-eb8d98d20416/content .
[8] “U.S. sanctions likely led to increase in infant mortality rate in Cuba, report finds,” LATimes, May 1, 2026, https://www.latimes.com/delos/story/2026-05-01/us-sanctions-cuba-increase-infant-mortality-rate-new-report-oil-blockade-trump-biden.
[9] “Effects of International Sanctions on Age-Specific Mortality: A Cross-National Panel Data Analysis,” Francisco Rodríguez, Silvio Rendón, and Mark Weisbrot, The Lancet Global Health (2025), https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40712610/ .The study examined 152 countries over five decades and found a significant association between international sanctions and increased mortality, with particularly strong effects for unilateral, economic, and U.S. sanctions.
[10] “UN rights experts urge action to avert ‘silent Gaza’ in Cuba,” Reuters, August 6, 2026, https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/un-rights-experts-urge-action-avert-silent-gaza-cuba-2026-08-06/
