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Opinion
Trump's Oil Embargo on Cuba Should Be Seen for What It Is: An Unprovoked Act of War
When economic measures are structured in ways that foreseeably disrupt essential civilian infrastructure, should they remain insulated from the congressional scrutiny required for military hostilities?
Feb 13, 2026
For decades, American leaders have described economic sanctions as the “peaceful alternative” to war—the space between diplomacy and bombs. Sanctions, we are told, are restraint.
But what happens when economic pressure shuts down power grids? When oil flows are deliberately constricted? When hospitals lose electricity, water systems falter, airports close, and entire populations endure 24-hour blackouts?
At what point does economic coercion stop being diplomacy and begin resembling siege?
Cuba today offers a sobering case study. Severe fuel shortages have led to prolonged blackouts, aviation fuel depletion, transportation paralysis, and mounting strain on hospitals and water systems. The United Nations has warned that without restored energy flows, the country risks systemic collapse. The Trump administration’s recent emergency measures—including secondary tariffs aimed at countries supplying oil to Cuba—mark a structural shift. The pressure is no longer confined to bilateral embargo. It now reaches third countries and energy supply chains.
Sanctions are often described as the alternative to war. But when structured to constrict energy lifelines and induce systemic deprivation, they can become war by other means.
This is not a narrow trade dispute. It is energy denial.
And energy is the backbone of civilian life.
The United States may have legitimate national security concerns regarding Cuba—allegations of intelligence cooperation with rival powers, human rights violations, regional instability. Those concerns deserve serious evaluation. But the constitutional question remains: When economic measures are structured in ways that foreseeably disrupt essential civilian infrastructure, should they remain insulated from the congressional scrutiny required for military hostilities?
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 was enacted in the shadow of Vietnam. Its purpose was simple: to ensure that decisions that risk war reflect the “collective judgment” of both Congress and the President. If US armed forces are introduced into hostilities, the president must report to Congress within 48 hours. Within 60 days, Congress must authorize the action—or it must end.
The resolution was designed to prevent unilateral executive entanglement in war.
But it was written for a world of tanks and troops.
It does not contemplate 21st-century economic statecraft—where power grids can be destabilized without a single soldier crossing a border, and where sanctions regimes can function, in practice, like blockades.
Modern sanctions are not limited to asset freezes or visa bans. Increasingly, they target energy flows, banking systems, insurance markets, and shipping networks. They employ secondary penalties—punishing third countries that engage in prohibited commerce. They leverage emergency declarations that can persist for years, even decades.
When economic measures constrict oil—the fuel that powers electricity generation, water purification, hospitals, refrigeration, aviation, and transportation—their societal impact can mirror the effects of siege warfare.
Yet constitutionally, they are treated as routine foreign commerce regulation.
That gap is no longer sustainable.
Economic power is national power. When wielded coercively at scale, it can destabilize regions, accelerate migration crises, and generate humanitarian consequences that reverberate far beyond the intended target. It can entrench ruling elites rather than dislodge them. It can undermine US credibility. And it can blur the line between pressure and punishment.
Congress must modernize the War Powers Resolution to reflect this reality.
The reform need not prohibit sanctions. Nor should it weaken legitimate national security tools. But it should establish guardrails.
At minimum, Congress should require that when emergency-based economic measures:
- Target essential civilian infrastructure such as energy or water systems;
- Impose extraterritorial penalties on third countries;
- Produce measurable humanitarian strain; and
- Are explicitly intended to compel regime-level political change;
the president must submit a formal report to Congress within 48 hours—just as required when troops are introduced into hostilities.
And within 60 days, Congress should vote to authorize, modify, or terminate those measures.
This would not equate sanctions with war. It would not declare economic pressure unconstitutional. It would simply restore shared judgment in situations where economic instruments produce effects historically associated with warfare.
Emergency powers were designed for extraordinary threats—not for structural permanence. When emergency authorities become normalized, oversight attenuates. The longer a “national emergency” persists, the less it resembles an emergency.
If sanctions are genuinely necessary to protect US security, Congress should be willing to stand behind them. If they are not, Congress should have the institutional responsibility to recalibrate them.
Democratic accountability strengthens national power; it does not weaken it.
Cuba’s current trajectory underscores the urgency. Prolonged blackouts and energy scarcity do not fall neatly on government officials alone. They cascade through hospitals, schools, food storage, transportation, and tourism. They shape migration patterns and regional stability. They can generate humanitarian crises that require international response.
History offers caution. Decades of sanctions in Cuba have not produced regime change. Studies of sanctions more broadly show limited success in transforming consolidated political systems. More often, sanctions harden elites, shift burdens onto civilians, and narrow diplomatic space.
That does not mean sanctions have no role. It means they must be evaluated not only for intent, but for effect.
Strength is not measured solely by the ability to impose pressure. It is measured by the wisdom to calibrate it.
The United States is most credible when it demonstrates that its power operates within constitutional boundaries. Updating the War Powers Resolution to address large-scale economic coercion would signal that democratic oversight keeps pace with modern instruments of statecraft.
To the Trump administration: Emergency authority carries immense responsibility. Energy denial that risks humanitarian collapse may not ultimately advance US security interests. Recalibration—maintaining targeted pressure while preventing civilian infrastructure breakdown—reflects prudence, not weakness.
To Congress: Your war powers are not limited to bullets and bombs. They extend to the conditions that make conflict more likely. Modernize the law.
To scholars, institutions, and civil society: Engage respectfully, but firmly. Present data. Highlight humanitarian indicators. Encourage constitutional balance. The debate should not be partisan. It should be structural.
Sanctions are often described as the alternative to war. But when structured to constrict energy lifelines and induce systemic deprivation, they can become war by other means.
The War Powers Resolution was born of a constitutional reckoning. Half a century later, economic statecraft demands another.
History will not ask whether America had power. It will ask whether it used that power wisely—and whether it subjected that power to the discipline of democracy.
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Why Status-Quo Dems Should Heed the Progressive Earthquake in New Jersey
The special primary election in New Jersey's 11th Congressional District was the first real chance Democrats have had to express their disapproval of the party leadership; it will certainly not be the last.
Feb 13, 2026
For months now, Democrats have expressed frustration with their party’s inability to oppose Trump 2.0 and the failure to construct an alternative. In October 2025, the Pew Research Foundation found that
- Two-thirds of Democrats say they are frustrated with the Democratic Party. Fewer than half of Republicans (40%) say the same of the GOP.
- Three-in-ten Democrats also say their own party makes them feel angry. Just 19% of Republicans say the same of their own party.
- Half of Democrats say their party makes them feel hopeful, compared with 69% of Republicans who say the same of the GOP.
- Just 29% of Democrats say the Democratic Party makes them feel proud; 52% of Republicans say their party evokes feelings of pride.
The Pew research builds on earlier research from the AP-NORC. In an open-ended question (meaning that respondents are free to volunteer anything), roughly 15% of Democrats described their party using words like "weak," or "apathetic," while an additional 10% believe it is broadly "ineffective" or "disorganized." Only 2 in 10 (20%) Democrats use positive words to describe their party. The most popular positive adjectives are “empathetic” and “inclusive.”
There are certainly Democrats on Capitol Hill who express frustration with their party for not doing enough to oppose President Donald Trump and put forth an alternative. Though he is not technically a Democrat (he is an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats), Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is a regular critic of the Democratic Party. Over the last few months, Sanders has been joined by others. The Washington Post reported back in September 2025 that Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has come to join those dissatisfied with the Democratic response to Trump:
During more than two decades in Congress, Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland has earned a reputation as a mainstream policy wonk and loyal lieutenant to Democratic leaders. So, it came as something of a shock this month when Van Hollen derided top Democrats for failing to endorse New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist. “Many Democratic members of the Senate and the House representing New York have stayed on the sidelines” in the race, even as Mamdani has captured the public’s imagination by focusing on “ensuring that people can afford to live in the place where they work,” Van Hollen told a cheering crowd of party activists in Des Moines. “That kind of spineless politics is what people are sick of.”
Democrat rank and file were frustrated by their party’s breaking ranks in the Senate on the government shutdown in November. To many Democrats, including a number of Democrats on Capitol Hill, their party ended the shutdown without winning anything. MS described the situation as:
By breaking ranks, the eight Democrats effectively stripped their caucus of leverage to force an extension of the healthcare tax credits—and decided on their own, how the party’s shutdown strategy would end. It came as a shock to most Democrats.
Disgruntled Democrats have not had many opportunities to express their frustration with their party. There have not been any real Democratic primaries. All of this changed in dramatic form with the Democratic primary February 5 for New Jersey’s vacant 11th District (the former incumbent Mikie Sherrill was elected New Jersey governor). It is certainly fair to say that the 11th District is a Democratic one, but it is not one where you would expect a progressive to do well. It is mostly affluent suburbs where many commute to work in New York City.
In a result that shocked the Democratic establishment in both New Jersey and Washington, DC, Analilia Mejia, director of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, and the political director for Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign, won a tightly contested multi-candidate field including former Congressman Tom Malinowski who had the backing of New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim. Also in the race was Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way and Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill.
In her campaign, Mejia spent far less than her opponents and lacked endorsement by county Democratic officials. She compensated for this by building an impressive get-out-the-vote operation and by emphasizing her opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
Mejia’s campaign was also helped by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which spent over $2 million in negative advertising attacking Malinowski. Many of the ads attacked him for a vote connected to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) funding; the group had made it clear they felt Malinowski’s openness to conditioning aid to Israel was not sufficiently supportive of Israel. AIPAC’s involvement in the race certainly hurt Malinowski, but I doubt whether it was decisive. Mejia’s win was the result of her longtime organizing in New Jersey and fact that her campaign’s message fit the mood of the electorate.
New York Times columnist Michele Goldberg recounts her conversation with a longtime New Jersey pollster:
But the longtime New Jersey pollster Patrick Murray told me he wasn’t surprised, because “this is an incredibly angry Democratic electorate.” New Jersey suburbanites, he argues, didn’t suddenly turn into democratic socialists. But they think the Democratic establishment has been feckless, and they want representatives who won’t consult a focus group before battling the president. “The underlying message,” he said, is that Democratic voters believe their party “should be on a war footing with Donald Trump.”
Mejia still must win a special general election in April before she can take her seat in Congress. However, given the district’s partisan tilt, it seems like a pretty safe bet.
The special primary election in New Jersey's 11th Congressional District was the first real chance Democrats have had to express their disapproval of the party leadership. It will certainly not be the last opportunity for restive Democrats to express their frustrations with their party. Based on what happened in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, status-quo Democrats have much to be worried about. On February 11, Axios reported on a conversation with Sen. Sanders:
Asked in a phone interview where else he thinks the left can win upset victories, Sanders pointed to a "Fighting Oligarchy" rally he is doing on Friday with Nida Allam, who is challenging Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC). "That might be another area where progressives can win a strong victory," he said. Brad Lander, the former New York City comptroller challenging Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), also has "a strong chance to win," Sanders said.
Mejia’s win in New Jersey may well be the harbinger of more wins for the left wing of the Democratic Party as Democrats look to send a message to their leadership on Capitol Hill. The Democratic leadership in Washington, DC has yet to come to terms with how frustrated and angry ordinary Democrats are not only with Trump but with their leadership as well.
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Trump's ICE Goons Are Targeting Hard Workers, Our Friends, Neighbors, and Families—Not the 'Worst of the Worst'
Showing that only 14% of 400,000 people arrested by federal agents have violent criminal records, leaked figures from the Department of Homeland Security have not received the news coverage they deserve.
Feb 12, 2026
Trump is lying about ICE arrests. He said his deportation machine would go after only the “worst of the worst.”
According to newly leaked data from the Department of Homeland Security, less than 14 percent of the 400,000 immigrants arrested by ICE in the past year have either been charged with or convicted of violent crimes.
The vast majority of immigrants jailed by ICE have no criminal record at all. A few have previously been charged with or convicted of nonviolent offenses, such as overstaying their visas or permission to be in the country.
(In the past, alleged violations of U.S.immigration laws were normally adjudicated by Justice Department immigration judges in civil — not criminal — proceedings.)
A large proportion of the people ICE has arrested are now in jail — some 73,000 — and being held without bail. They’re in what the Department of Homeland Security calls “detention facilities.”
Many lack adequate medical attention.
The Times reported this morning that a New Jersey woman, Leqaa Kordia, who has been held at the Prairieland Detention Facility in Alvarado, Texas, for nearly a year, suffered a seizure after she fell and hit her head. She was involved in an pro-Palestinian demonstration at Columbia University in 2024 and detained for overstaying her visa, but has never been charged with a crime. A judge has twice ruled that she is not a threat to the United States.
Meanwhile, a federal judge has ordered an external monitor to oversee California’s largest immigration detention center, California City Detention Facility, citing “shockingly deficient” medical care, including cases where detainees were denied medication for serious conditions.
A 2025 U.S. Senate investigation uncovered dozens of cases of medical neglect, with instances of detainees left without care for days and others being forced to compete for clean water.
Reports from early 2026 indicate that even children in family detention centers face poor conditions, including being returned to custody after hospitalization for severe illness without receiving necessary medication.
People held in detention facilities are deprived of the most basic means of communication to connect with their lawyers and the rest of the outside world, including phones, mail, and email. Some have been split off from the rest of their families, held hundreds if not thousands of miles away from their loved ones. Some of them are children.
Many are in the United States legally, awaiting determinations about their status as refugees fleeing violence or retribution in their home countries. Or they have green cards that would normally allow them to remain in the United States. Others have been in the United States for decades as law-abiding members of their communities.
They are hardly the “worst of the worst.” Many are like our parents or grandparents or great-grandparents who came to the United States seeking better lives. We are a nation of immigrants. While this doesn’t excuse being here without proper documentation, it doesn’t justify the draconian and inhumane measures being utilized by the Trump regime.
These leaked data from the Department of Homeland Security have not received the news coverage they deserve.
Moreover, these data pertain only to ICE. They don’t include arrests by Border Patrol agents deployed by the Trump administration to places far away from the U.S.-Mexico border, such as Chicago and Minneapolis, where Border Patrol agents have undertaken aggressive and sweeping arrest operations, targeting day laborers at Home Depot parking lots and stopping people — including U.S. citizens — to question them about their immigration status.
This is a moral blight on America, a crime against humanity. As Americans, we are complicit.
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Don Lemon’s Travail Is a Warning of Rising Authoritarianism; I Would Know
My experience as a university professor in Congo demonstrates that repressive governments may go after a variety of observers sympathizing with militant protesters by purveying false or distorted reports of their actions.
Feb 12, 2026
Former CNN anchor Don Lemon is under federal indictment for participating in a Minnesota protest group’s obstruction of a church service. He is scheduled to be arraigned Friday. News of his prosecution took me back more than five decades to when I was a young university professor in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). At that time, President Mobutu Sese Seko’s government threatened to arrest me for my alleged involvement in student disruptions.
In both cases, increasingly authoritarian governments decided to clamp down on independent observers—journalists or others—who sympathized with community activists. To do so, they distorted what actually happened to serve their political interests. Yet, I suspect that the last person President Donald Trump wants to be compared to is a corrupt, fallen, disgraced African dictator.
In December 1970, my university screeched to a halt as the entire student body boycotted classes. With support from Zairian professors and staff, the students called for the replacement of the Protestant missionary rector, criticized for incompetence and racism. From afar, I sympathized with their position. One day, with the university offering no information on the conflict, I accepted an invitation to hop onto a student bus. As a curious political scientist, I hoped to learn more about what my students were thinking. Arriving at a dormitory, I found myself enveloped in a crowd slowly moving forward. Suddenly, I found myself standing before a mock coffin for the rector emblazoned, “Rest in Peace.” Reaching for humor, I tossed a vine I had picked up onto the coffin. Then I walked away, seeing no opportunity for discussion.
Encountering one of my best students on campus a day or two later, I asked him what was happening with his movement. We discussed the students’ perspective and actions. I posed questions in the style of a neutral reporter or scholar. At a certain point, he reiterated the students’ expressed belief that the rector had discouraged his better qualified, potential replacement. Out of sympathy with the student demands and wanting to equalize our exchange, I shared relevant information I had, which appeared to confirm their suspicion. In doing so, I later realized, I yielded to an impulse that deserved more scrutiny.
Whether or not Lemon is convicted, the Trump administration’s approach of pursuing individuals who can be loosely linked to disruptive demonstrations is likely to continue.
Soon, I was surprised to learn that the rector’s supporters in the university were spreading exaggerated and false versions of my involvement in the protests. I was said to have knelt before the coffin, worked to replace a Protestant rector with a Jewish one, and actively participated in students’ subsequent siege, including minor violence, of university trustees’ meeting in a private home. Declassified State Department records show that Mobutu, his minister of the interior, and the American ambassador believed these baseless reports. I was ordered to fly with my family 800 miles to the capital and report to the minister. Over 10 anxious days, I finally managed to persuade the minister that my case should be “closed.”
Last month, Don Lemon live streamed a community protest group’s disruption of a religious service in a St. Paul, Minnesota church. In the context of community resistance to Immigration and Custom Enforcement abuses, the group had discovered that one of the pastors was an important ICE official. Lemon and eight others were charged under the federal FACE Act with conspiring “to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate” (including chants, yelling, and physical obstruction) multiple persons in the free exercise of religion—causing termination of the service, parishioners’ flight, emergency planning, and children’s fears.
Lemon himself was accused of certain “overt acts“ in and around the church:
- Reporting on parishioners' responses to the mayhem, including a young man crying and congregants departing, he called them understandable since the “whole point [of the operation is to disrupt;”
- Physically obstructing, along with two other protesters, the pastor on three sides while peppering him with questions and ignoring his request to leave immediately; and
- Physically obstructing some parishioners attempting to leave.
Some MAGA activists condemned Lemon and the others for “storming” the church and committing an anti-Christian hate crime.
Yet, a detailed examination of Lemon’s hour-long live-stream video of the event shows a far different reality. He is mainly observing and interviewing—as I was in the Congo—plus publicly reporting on what he sees. Inside the church, he tells parishioners and viewers several times that he is “chronicling and reporting” and “not part of the activists.” He interviews protesters, the pastor, and parishioners, generally seeking their views in a neutral way. Sometimes his questioning cites protesters’ grievances, but he generally does not insist upon them. It is also clear from the video that he and nearby protesters are not obstructing the pastor, nor are they preventing parishioners from leaving the church.
Like me, Lemon indicates sympathy with the protesters, invoking the history of the US civil rights movement. At one point he tells viewers—but not others—that he supports the disruption because “you have to make people uncomfortable in these times [when ICE is committing abuses during operations against illegal immigrants].” “I believe…, he declares, "everyone has to be willing to sacrifice something.” Only once though does he seem to depart from neutrality with a parishioner. After an interchange in which he states ICE’s excesses are powering protests and his interlocutor maintains ICE is keeping America safe, he asks the latter, “Do you really believe that?” Then, as the man starts to walk away, Lemon persists by trying to present him with “facts” that immigrants have lower crime rates than natives and most detainees were not convicted of crimes.
Lemon also presents an alternative to the conflict: He suggests to both the pastor and a parishioner that they move from confrontation to calm discussion with the protesters, for that might reveal areas of agreement.
These are however minor chords in Lemon’s overall conventional reporting style. We might consider whether, in an age of flagging journalist legitimacy, a reporter’s acknowledgement of his personal perspective amid an effort to tell a story objectively can enhance audience trust.
Either way, Lemon’s remarks did not transform him into a member of the group besieging the church any more than my two encounters with student protesters made me into a member of the group besieging the trustees.
Together these cases warn that repressive governments may go after a variety of observers sympathizing with militant protesters by purveying false or distorted reports of their actions. Whether or not Lemon is convicted, the Trump administration’s approach of pursuing individuals who can be loosely linked to disruptive demonstrations is likely to continue. Worryingly, the head of the FBI has announced investigations of “paid protest campaigns” throughout the country including “organizers, protesters, and funding sources that drive illicit activities.”
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