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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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Khanna Names 6 Men 'Likely Incriminated' by Epstein Files That 'DOJ Hid for No Apparent Reason'
“The reality is that Donald Trump’s FBI scrubbed these files in March, long before Thomas Massie and I passed the Epstein Transparency Act," said the California progressive.
Feb 10, 2026
Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna on Tuesday read aloud on the House floor the names of half a dozen men he said are "likely incriminated" in files concerning Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted child sex criminal and former friend of President Donald Trump.
“Yesterday, Congressman [Thomas] Massie [R-Ky.] and I went to the Department of Justice to read the unredacted Epstein files," Khanna (Calif.) said. "We spent about two hours there, and we learned that 70 to 80% of the files are still redacted."
"In fact, there were six wealthy, powerful men that the DOJ hid for no apparent reason,” the congressman continued. “When Congressman Massie and I pointed this out to the DOJ, they acknowledged their mistake, and now they have revealed the identity of these six powerful men."
“These men are: Salvatore Nuara; Zurab Mikeladze; Leonic Leonov; Nicola Caputo; Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, CEO of Dubai Ports World; and billionaire businessman Leslie Wexner, who was labeled as a ‘co-conspirator,’ by the FBI.” Khanna said.
“Now my question is: Why did it take Thomas Massie and me going to the Justice Department to get these six men’s identities to become public?" Khanna asked. "And if we found six men that they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up for in those three million files.”
Last year, Congress passed Khanna and Massie's Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the public release of all relevant documents within 30 days. The legislation also empowered Attorney General Pam Bondi to redact large amounts of information that critics fear could include material that incriminates Trump, who Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said Tuesday is mentioned "more than a million times" in the unredacted Epstein files.
Democratic lawmakers and Massie have accused the DOJ of violating the law by incomplete disclosure and blowing the legal deadline for publishing the documents.
Major update: Trump mentioned in the “unredacted” Epstein Files more than one million times.FBI scrubbed files before giving them to the DOJ, so many “unredacted” files remain redacted.Khanna reads the names of six men on the House floorHead of Ohio State gynecology received money from Epstein
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— Aaron Parnas (@aaronparnas.bsky.social) February 10, 2026 at 11:13 AM
“The story gets worse,” Khanna said Tuesday. “The reality is that Donald Trump’s FBI scrubbed these files in March, long before Thomas Massie and I passed the Epstein Transparency Act... That means the survivors’ statement to the FBI naming rich and powerful men who went to Epstein’s island... they’re all hidden.”
None of the six named men had responded to Khanna's action as of late Tuesday afternoon. A legal representative for Wexner previously told the Associated Press that prosecutors had informed the 88-year-old billionaire that he was “neither a co-conspirator nor a target in any respect,” and that he cooperated with investigators.
The names of the six men were entered into the Congressional Record as part of Khanna's remarks. Inclusion in the Epstein files does not by itself prove or even imply any criminal wrongdoing.
“It’s time to begin with accountability for the Epstein class," Khanna said during his remarks Tuesday. "Hold them in front of Congress, those people who visited the island or did business with Epstein after he was a convicted pedophile. Investigate them. Prosecute them. And let us return to democratic accountability in the United States of America."
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‘There’s a Bunch of Sick F*cks’: Lawmakers in Both Parties Stunned and Disgusted After Viewing Unredacted Epstein Files
“Initially my reaction to all this was, I don’t care, I don’t know what the big deal is," the Trump-supporting Sen. Cynthia Lummis said. "But now I see what the big deal is."
Feb 10, 2026
Members of Congress were given a chance to scour unredacted versions of the Department of Justice's files on Jeffrey Epstein for the first time on Monday.
There are more than 3 million pages available for lawmakers to comb through following their release to the public with heavy redactions. Meanwhile, despite a law requiring all the files to be released in December, the DOJ is still sitting on another 3 million pages that have yet to be published.
Lawmakers have so far only scratched the surface of the information available. But what they've seen after just one day has even some of President Donald Trump's biggest defenders reevaluating their dismissal of the Epstein scandal.
“Initially, my reaction to all this was, I don’t care, I don’t know what the big deal is," Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) told independent journalist Pablo Manríquez on Monday. "But now I see what the big deal is and it was worth investigating. The members of Congress who were pushing this were not wrong!”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who have led the charge in Congress for the files to be released, said on Monday that six individuals who were “likely incriminated” in Epstein’s crimes had their identities blacked out by the DOJ in the files that were released publicly.
“In a couple of hours, we found six men whose names have been redacted, who are implicated in the way that the files are presented,” Massie told reporters outside the DOJ office where lawmakers viewed the files.
They did not initially specify the individuals' names, but Massie said at least one was a US citizen and some were “high‑up” foreign officials.
Massie later revealed that one of the men on this list was Les Wexner, the ex-CEO of L Brands, which owns Victoria's Secret. Wexner appears in the files thousands of times and was infamously one of Epstein's most intimate financial clients.
After Massie questioned why Wexner's name was blacked out, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced it had been unredacted and said the DOJ was "hiding nothing." The other five names remained redacted as of Tuesday morning.
The FBI closed its investigation into Epstein in July, concluding that while the financier himself abused several underage girls, along with his partner Ghislane Maxwell—who is currently serving 20 years in prison—he was not running a sex-trafficking ring that included other powerful figures.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said the files he and other lawmakers reviewed yesterday told a much different story.
“It’s disgusting," he said. "There are lots of names, lots of co-conspirators, and they’re trafficking girls all across the world."
Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) put it more succinctly when a Drop Site News reporter caught her on the way back from the DOJ office and asked what she learned from viewing the files.
"There's a bunch of sick fucks," she said.
Lawmakers also said the documents contradicted Trump’s claims that he booted Epstein from membership at his Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, and disassociated from him in the early 2000s because the predator was poaching young female workers from the resort. Trump has said that one of them was the late Virginia Giuffre, then a 17-year-old locker room employee, who’d go on to become one of Epstein’s victims and most prominent accusers.
According to Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), "for some indeterminate, inscrutable reason,” the DOJ concealed a summary of statements allegedly made by Trump, provided by Epstein's lawyers, in which the president said he never asked Epstein to leave the club.
Balint confirmed she saw the same document.
"One [document] was related to whether or not Trump had ever kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago, as he claimed," she said. "It's not true. It's a lie."
The law passed in November requiring the files' release mandates that victims of Epstein's abuse have their privacy protected, but forbids the DOJ from redacting information to protect prominent individuals, including government officials, from embarrassment.
“The broader issue is why so many of the files they’re getting are redacted in the first place,” Khanna said. “What Americans want to know is who the rich and powerful people are who went to [Epstein's] island? Did they rape underage girls? Did they know that underage girls were being paraded around?”
Massie and Khanna said they were disappointed to find that many of the files that were supposed to be available were still heavily redacted. Massie lamented that the DOJ had not yet provided access to the FBI’s 302 forms, which contain official summaries of interviews with witnesses and victims.
Raskin said viewing the files affirmed many of the concerns about the DOJ "over-redacting" files.
“We didn’t want there to be a cover-up, and yet, what I saw today was that there were lots of examples of people’s names being redacted when they were not victims,” Raskin told CNN. "There are thousands and thousands of pages replete with redactions. There are entire pages in memos where you can't see anything."
Lawmakers were given permission to view the files in a letter sent by the DOJ on Friday, following mounting criticism about the extensive number of redactions in the public release. They are required to sift through the files in a tightly-secured DOJ office and are barred from making copies available to the public, though they are allowed to take notes.
Raskin said that the office contains only four computers, making the process of sorting through more than 3 million files agonizingly slow.
"Working 40 hours a week on nothing else but this, it would take more than seven years for the 217 members who signed the House discharge petition to read just the documents they've decided to release," he wrote in a post on social media.
Attorney General Pam Bondi is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee about the handling of the files on Wednesday. Massie said he plans to grill her about why so many potential co-conspirators had their names redacted in the public release.
“I would like to give the DOJ a chance to say they made a mistake and over‑redacted and let them unredact those men’s names," he said. That would probably be the best way to do it.”
Blanche has responded to the criticism on social media, saying, "The DOJ is committed to transparency."
Khanna, who appeared on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” Tuesday morning, said that based on what he saw in the public release, the opposite is true.
" Donald Trump had the FBI scrub those files in March," he said. "And the documents we saw already had the redactions of the FBI from March. So we still have not seen the vast majority of documents unredacted that have the survivor statements of the rich and powerful men who committed these crimes."
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