Meeks, Kaine Lead Democrats in Letter Warning Against Trump Administration’s Failed Cuba Policy

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, led 50 representatives and senators in sending a letter to President Trump that condemns the administration's ongoing blockade of Cuba. In their letter, the lawmakers outlined how these policies are exacerbating a humanitarian crisis and called for a new approach that reverses six decades of failed U.S. policy toward Cuba.

Full text of the letter can be found here and below.

Dear President Trump,

We write with great urgency to express our alarm at the dire humanitarian crisis in Cuba, a crisis your administration is actively worsening through its expansion of a policy that has failed for more than six decades. For 64 years, the United States has relied on the flawed premise that maximum pressure would yield political change on the island. It has not.

Doubling down on failed strategies by restricting access to energy and health care is contrary to American values and is needlessly exacerbating a humanitarian crisis. By engineering an accelerated energy collapse, your administration has shifted responsibility for Cuba's suffering away from the Cuban government and squarely onto the United States.

Conditions in Cuba are deteriorating rapidly. Widespread blackouts, shortages of basic goods, and the collapse of critical infrastructure are placing extraordinary strain on ordinary Cubans. The most vulnerable-children, the elderly, and those with chronic illnesses-are bearing the heaviest burden. With hospitals unable to stay online due to fuel shortages, patients are being turned away for treatment, and people will die if you do not reverse course immediately.

On March 16, you told reporters you would have, "the honor of taking Cuba," and that, "whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with [Cuba]." The people of Cuba want to live and prosper-your administration should help facilitate their access to food, medicine, and energy, not cut it off. Furthermore, any attempt to illegally use the U.S. military to attempt an overthrow of the Cuban regime risks costing American taxpayers billions of dollars, American lives, and in all likelihood will leave the underlying political conditions unchanged. The United States cannot bomb Cuba out of economic collapse and political repression.

The only U.S. policy that can help Cuba chart a brighter future is one that empowers its people, not uses them as pawns in a strategy that has consistently fallen short. Cuba has signaled its willingness to cooperate on issues you have claimed to be priorities, namely migration and drug trafficking, and we urge you to pursue diplomacy over failed pressure tactics. We also remain willing to work with your administration to modify the draconian and outdated U.S. sanctions regime signed into law 30 years ago, which has hampered the ability of President after President to negotiate a meaningful opening with Cuba.

Sincerely,

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