ACERE Statement on National Emergency Order Threatening Cuba’s Oil Suppliers

The Alliance for Cuba Engagement and Respect (ACERE) condemns in the strongest possible terms the Trump administration’s escalation against Cuba through its renewed declaration of a National Emergency Order announcing new punitive measures designed to choke Cuba’s access to oil. The ultimate goal of this inhumane policy is to eliminate any possibility of basic survival in a nation that depends on oil imports for energy generation, food production, transportation, and delivery of healthcare and other critical services.

The order declares Cuba an extraordinary threat to the national security of the United States due to “its support of hostile actors, terrorism, and regional instability that endanger American security and foreign policy.” These false and unwarranted pretexts used to justify any measure towards regime change in Cuba have been dismissed by policymakers and elected officials in both major political parties for years. They not only insult basic reasoning, but are counter to our national security interests because they undermine our counter-narcotics and anti-terrorism efforts as well as regional stability very close to our Southern border. 

Clearly, this policy is not aimed at punishing government officials. It is a campaign of collective punishment against ten million civilians, in blatant violation of international law. 

Declaring a National Emergency is not symbolic. Under United States law, it unlocks sweeping executive powers through the National Emergencies Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. These authorities allow the White House to impose broad sanctions, restrict commerce, freeze transactions, and escalate economic warfare without immediate congressional approval. This is a legal weapon that is increasingly being used not to protect Americans, but to inflict maximum suffering abroad.

The administration’s newest threat, imposing tariffs and penalties on countries that “directly or indirectly” provide oil to Cuba, is especially dangerous. It is not in the US interest to collapse the Cuban economy, to provoke an even greater irregular migration wave, and to cause death.

Fuel is not a luxury. Fuel powers ambulances, hospital generators, dialysis machines, vaccine refrigeration, food transportation networks, water pumping systems, and agricultural production equipment. To attack Cuba’s access to fuel is to attack the foundations of life itself.  It will kill the most vulnerable first, including children, elderly people, cancer patients, and families already living on the edge of survival.

This measure might also prove unhelpful. Cuba’s few oil suppliers have already expressed strong condemnation, and pledged to continue to support the Cuban people for humanitarian reasons. The US will be further isolated in its Cuba policy.

International rejection of the United States’ escalation against Cuba is already growing beyond the nearly annual unanimous condemnation by all United Nation member states of the existing embargo. Governments and international organizations have condemned the use by the United States of unilateral emergency economic powers to restrict Cuba’s access to fuel and trade, warning that such measures violate international norms and risk severe humanitarian consequences. These reactions underscore that the world increasingly recognizes such tactics not as legitimate security policy, but as collective punishment that deepens suffering for the Cuban people and violates international norms.

If greater desperation of the Cuban people results in social protest, it would only serve to further entrench the power of the Cuban military and erode progress in individual liberties achieved in the last decades. Engagement, not maximum pressure, has already proven to be the only effective approach to advance US interests in Cuba. This measure will push the Cuban government closer to China, Russia and Iran. Rather than economic warfare, the Trump administration should negotiate with the Cuban government, and let US companies take advantage of a stable, potentially lucrative market.

ACERE also condemns the disgraceful celebration by some Cuban American politicians who applaud policies that knowingly kill civilians. To cheer the starvation and immiseration of a population is not patriotism. To weaponize shortages of electricity, water, food, and medicine for political gain is not love of freedom. It is cruelty and short-sightness.

ACERE calls on Members of Congress to reject this escalation, on the international community to oppose economic coercion as a tactic of warfare, on humanitarian organizations to condemn acts that violate human rights, and on the American people to refuse policies that undermine our national security and punish civilians.

The United States must choose diplomacy over domination, engagement over siege, and humanity over cruelty. The lives of millions of Cubans and the morality of our nation depend on it.