August 24, 2026
The Alliance for Cuba Engagement and Respect (ACERE) condemns the Trump-Rubio administration’s expansion of its blockade against Cuba from fuel to virtually any commercial and humanitarian cargo. What began in January as an effort to cut off Cuba’s access to imported fuel has now been transformed by increasingly sweeping U.S. secondary sanctions into a de facto blockade of the island’s international trade. The May 1, 2026 Executive Order 14404 dramatically expanded the reach of U.S. sanctions to foreign entities operating in virtually any sector of Cuba’s economy, creating enormous legal and financial risks for all companies that do business with the island, and even humanitarian organizations attempting to send aid.[1] The effect was immediate: two of the world’s largest container shipping companies, France’s CMA CGM and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd, suspended all new bookings to and from Cuba, explicitly citing the compliance risks created by the U.S. order, affecting as much as 60 percent of Cuba’s current shipping traffic by volume.[2]
Three months in, the consequences are visible in ports throughout the Caribbean and within Cuba. According to Cuba’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Trade, more than 7,000 containers carrying legally purchased goods for Cuba have been delayed or blocked at international ports because of the intensified U.S. sanctions regime.[3] Shipping and logistics companies face a stark choice: leave Cuba altogether, risk potentially devastating U.S. sanctions, or transfer cargo to smaller carriers at substantially greater cost and logistical difficulty. For Cuban importers—including private businesses, humanitarian organizations, and public institutions—this has meant paying again for goods they have already purchased, absorbing extraordinary shipping costs, or watching urgently needed supplies remain indefinitely out of reach.[4]
The affected cargo includes food, essential medicines, supplies for solar energy and the electrical grid, materials needed to produce drinking water, spare parts for food processing and agricultural production, and other critical goods. For example, 3.5 million syringes and needles and other medical supplies are stuck in Jamaica.[5] Every container stranded because a shipping company fears Washington’s sanctions represents food that cannot reach a store, medicine that cannot reach a patient, equipment that cannot reach a hospital, chemicals that cannot reach a water-treatment plant, or electrical components that cannot reach Cuba’s deteriorating power system.[6] The impact extends directly to Cuba’s private sector: entrepreneurs who have legally purchased inventory, machinery, raw materials, and other productive inputs can find themselves unable to receive the goods for which they have already paid. Humanitarian and religious organizations face the same obstacles.
It is clear that the Trump administration’s policy is not narrowly targeting Cuba’s military or security apparatus, as it claims. It is imposing a chilling effect across the entire economy and making ordinary Cubans, private entrepreneurs, and humanitarian organizations pay the price. The resulting shortages and delays deepen an already severe humanitarian crisis and make it harder—not easier—for Cuban businesses and citizens to achieve the economic independence that Washington claims to support.[7]
These developments expose the fundamental problem with the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy which is defended as aiming to support the Cuban people— secondary sanctions coupled with military threats and deployment function as a de facto naval blockade. The Trump administration is not simply expanding sanctions against Cuba. It is imposing a system of economic coercion so broad that major international shipping companies are being driven away from Cuba—even when the cargo they would carry is not itself prohibited under U.S. law. The precise characterization of the current U.S. Cuba measures is contested because much of the “blockade” operates through sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and deterrence rather than a conventional naval cordon.[8] But, given that Cuba doesn’t have its own cargo ships, the current siege accomplishes the same goals of a naval blockade: economic warfare, supply restriction and strategic pressure.
ACERE calls on the Trump administration to immediately end the policies that are strangling the Cuban people’s access to fuel, food, medicine, energy equipment, water treatment chemicals and other goods essential for life. If Washington genuinely wants to support the Cuban people and have a more prosperous and stable Cuba, it cannot use the threat of secondary sanctions to force companies around the world to participate in an economic blockade whose consequences fall overwhelmingly on ordinary Cubans, severely restricting their access to basic necessities. ACERE urges the Trump administration to lift the fuel blockade and other broad coercive measures that are obstructing lawful commercial trade and humanitarian aid, and engage directly with the Cuban government to resolve bilateral differences through diplomacy rather than economic strangulation.
For more information, contact: allianceforcuba@acere.org .
Notes:
[2] “Shippers Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGM suspend Cuba bookings after US executive order,” Reuters, May 17, 2026, https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/frances-cma-cgm-suspends-cuba-bookings-after-us-executive-order-2026-05-17/
[3] “Cuba says US sanctions have delayed more than 7,000 cargo containers bound for island,” Anadolu Agency, July 30, 2026, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/cuba-says-us-sanctions-have-delayed-more-than-7-000-cargo-containers-bound-for-island/4013264
[4] The World Food Program stopped plans to purchase 3,000 tons of food “because we cannot find a shipping solution to bring it to Cuba”…it’s also trying to find ways to pay for fuel it used to buy from private companies because it can no longer pay with Visa or Mastercard.” https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/world/americas/cuba-hotels-economy-trump.html
[5] “Sanctions leave medical supplies for Cuba stuck in Jamaica,” Belly of the Beast Cuba, July 16, 2026, https://www.bellyofthebeastcuba.com/news/sanctions-leave-medical-supplies-for-cuba-stuck-in-jamaica
[6] “The siege on Cuba’s right to grow, process and eat its own food,” Antigua News, August 24, 2026, https://antigua.news/2026/08/24/opinion-the-siege-on-cubas-right-to-grow-process-and-eat-its-own-food/
[7] “U.S. sanctions against Cuba are endangering lives and must be lifted,“ Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, June 8, 2026. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/06/us-sanctions-against-cuba-are-endangering-lives-and-must-be-lifted
[8] “The United States-Cuba Oil Embargo and International Law,” Rob McLaughlin and Michael Schmitt, April 29, 2026, https://www.justsecurity.org/137325/us-cuba-embargo-international-law/
