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A man cooks with firewood during a blackout in Havana, Cuba on May 13, 2026.
(Photo by Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images)
'Unlawful, Deeply Destabilizing, and Catastrophic': Dems Warn Trump Against Cuba Attack
Dozens of House Democrats wrote that the US "must not respond to a crisis it is creating with policies that deepen suffering."
May 14, 2026
A group of more than 30 Democratic lawmakers in the US House is imploring the Trump administration to abandon any plans for a military assault on Cuba and end the decades-old blockade that has deprived the island nation of fuel and sparked a grave humanitarian crisis.
In a letter dated May 12 and addressed to top Trump administration officials, Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) and other House Democrats wrote that the US "must not respond to a crisis it is creating with policies that deepen suffering, undermine the rule of law, and repeat the gravest failures of its past."
The members of Congress demanded that the Trump administration immediately end its use of the notorious Guantanamo Bay military prison for migrant detention, lift all "coercive economic measures" currently strangling Cuba, and "abandon reported plans for US military action against Cuba."
"Such action," the lawmakers warned, "would be unlawful, deeply destabilizing, and catastrophic for the Cuban population, while further increasing displacement, exacerbating mass suffering, and undermining US interests in the region."
"It must be unequivocally rejected," they added.
Through sanctions and unlawful threats of military action, the Trump administration is deepening the humanitarian crisis in Cuba. At the same time, they are once again threatening to use the Guantanamo Base, a prison with a history of dehumanizing and abusing people, to detain… pic.twitter.com/cXbCFfds4W
— Congresswoman Delia C. Ramirez (@repdeliaramirez) May 13, 2026
The House Democrats' letter was released shortly before Cuba's energy minister said the country has "absolutely no fuel" and "absolutely no diesel," blaming the oil blockade that the Trump administration imposed earlier this year after kidnapping the president of Venezuela—previously Cuba's primary supplier of oil.
"This dramatic worsening has a single cause: the genocidal energy blockade to which the United States subjects our country, threatening irrational tariffs against any nation that supplies us with fuel," Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel wrote Wednesday on social media. "What the spokespeople of the U.S. regime try to portray to the world as the direct consequence of poor management by the Cuban government is, in reality, the result of a perverse plan aimed at driving the people’s shortages and hardships to extreme levels."
US President Donald Trump has said publicly that his next military target is Cuba, which he has threatened to "take" by force.
Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Cuba's foreign affairs minister, posted the House Democrats' letter to social media on Thursday, writing that "the government that claims to defend democracy should listen to the majority voices that oppose the current escalation of threats, aggressions, tightening of the blockade, and energy siege against our country."
Last month, nearly every Republican senator and one Democrat—Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania—voted down a legislative effort to prevent Trump from launching an attack on Cuba without congressional authorization.
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A group of more than 30 Democratic lawmakers in the US House is imploring the Trump administration to abandon any plans for a military assault on Cuba and end the decades-old blockade that has deprived the island nation of fuel and sparked a grave humanitarian crisis.
In a letter dated May 12 and addressed to top Trump administration officials, Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) and other House Democrats wrote that the US "must not respond to a crisis it is creating with policies that deepen suffering, undermine the rule of law, and repeat the gravest failures of its past."
The members of Congress demanded that the Trump administration immediately end its use of the notorious Guantanamo Bay military prison for migrant detention, lift all "coercive economic measures" currently strangling Cuba, and "abandon reported plans for US military action against Cuba."
"Such action," the lawmakers warned, "would be unlawful, deeply destabilizing, and catastrophic for the Cuban population, while further increasing displacement, exacerbating mass suffering, and undermining US interests in the region."
"It must be unequivocally rejected," they added.
Through sanctions and unlawful threats of military action, the Trump administration is deepening the humanitarian crisis in Cuba. At the same time, they are once again threatening to use the Guantanamo Base, a prison with a history of dehumanizing and abusing people, to detain… pic.twitter.com/cXbCFfds4W
— Congresswoman Delia C. Ramirez (@repdeliaramirez) May 13, 2026
The House Democrats' letter was released shortly before Cuba's energy minister said the country has "absolutely no fuel" and "absolutely no diesel," blaming the oil blockade that the Trump administration imposed earlier this year after kidnapping the president of Venezuela—previously Cuba's primary supplier of oil.
"This dramatic worsening has a single cause: the genocidal energy blockade to which the United States subjects our country, threatening irrational tariffs against any nation that supplies us with fuel," Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel wrote Wednesday on social media. "What the spokespeople of the U.S. regime try to portray to the world as the direct consequence of poor management by the Cuban government is, in reality, the result of a perverse plan aimed at driving the people’s shortages and hardships to extreme levels."
US President Donald Trump has said publicly that his next military target is Cuba, which he has threatened to "take" by force.
Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Cuba's foreign affairs minister, posted the House Democrats' letter to social media on Thursday, writing that "the government that claims to defend democracy should listen to the majority voices that oppose the current escalation of threats, aggressions, tightening of the blockade, and energy siege against our country."
Last month, nearly every Republican senator and one Democrat—Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania—voted down a legislative effort to prevent Trump from launching an attack on Cuba without congressional authorization.
A group of more than 30 Democratic lawmakers in the US House is imploring the Trump administration to abandon any plans for a military assault on Cuba and end the decades-old blockade that has deprived the island nation of fuel and sparked a grave humanitarian crisis.
In a letter dated May 12 and addressed to top Trump administration officials, Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) and other House Democrats wrote that the US "must not respond to a crisis it is creating with policies that deepen suffering, undermine the rule of law, and repeat the gravest failures of its past."
The members of Congress demanded that the Trump administration immediately end its use of the notorious Guantanamo Bay military prison for migrant detention, lift all "coercive economic measures" currently strangling Cuba, and "abandon reported plans for US military action against Cuba."
"Such action," the lawmakers warned, "would be unlawful, deeply destabilizing, and catastrophic for the Cuban population, while further increasing displacement, exacerbating mass suffering, and undermining US interests in the region."
"It must be unequivocally rejected," they added.
Through sanctions and unlawful threats of military action, the Trump administration is deepening the humanitarian crisis in Cuba. At the same time, they are once again threatening to use the Guantanamo Base, a prison with a history of dehumanizing and abusing people, to detain… pic.twitter.com/cXbCFfds4W
— Congresswoman Delia C. Ramirez (@repdeliaramirez) May 13, 2026
The House Democrats' letter was released shortly before Cuba's energy minister said the country has "absolutely no fuel" and "absolutely no diesel," blaming the oil blockade that the Trump administration imposed earlier this year after kidnapping the president of Venezuela—previously Cuba's primary supplier of oil.
"This dramatic worsening has a single cause: the genocidal energy blockade to which the United States subjects our country, threatening irrational tariffs against any nation that supplies us with fuel," Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel wrote Wednesday on social media. "What the spokespeople of the U.S. regime try to portray to the world as the direct consequence of poor management by the Cuban government is, in reality, the result of a perverse plan aimed at driving the people’s shortages and hardships to extreme levels."
US President Donald Trump has said publicly that his next military target is Cuba, which he has threatened to "take" by force.
Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Cuba's foreign affairs minister, posted the House Democrats' letter to social media on Thursday, writing that "the government that claims to defend democracy should listen to the majority voices that oppose the current escalation of threats, aggressions, tightening of the blockade, and energy siege against our country."
Last month, nearly every Republican senator and one Democrat—Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania—voted down a legislative effort to prevent Trump from launching an attack on Cuba without congressional authorization.
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