Statement of the ILPS
The International League of Peoples’ Struggle condemns the intensifying 60+ year blockade against Cuba by the US that has reached catastrophic levels through cutting off all oil supplies since its bombing of Venezuela. The recent threats against all countries doing business with Cuba, in particular oil deals, amounts to a final economic suffocation attempt by the Trump regime to break the livelihood of the people and bend the country to its will. We call on all peace-loving people and movements across the world to extend their moral, political, and material solidarity towards Cuba in this dire situation and continue the fight against US imperialism.
Since 1962, the US has imposed a cruel and unjust embargo on Cuba due to its defense of sovereignty and socialist construction to chart a better future for its people. For 33 years straight, at least 187 nations have voted in the United Nations General Assembly to end the US blockade and trade embargo on Cuba every year. The sole votes of opposition have come from US puppets such as the Zionist entity and the US itself. This embargo has resulted in as much as $2 trillion USD in losses for the Cuban economy as of 2024 (over $5 billion USD a year), resulting in regular shortages of medicine, food, and oil that have only been overcome through the efforts of the Cuban people and oil exports from countries such as Venezuela, Mexico, Russia, and Algeria. In the US’s own words, as stated by the State Department in 1960, the purpose of the embargo, or rather blockade is “to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”
Since the start of the fascist Trump regime’s second term, the US has set its sights on Latin America as part of its overt revival of 19th Century Monroe Doctrine language in part of its strategy to combat China’s influence, but also to ideologically satiate the imperial hunger of Christian nationalist and expansionist interests represented in the US State and War Departments. Together with President Trump, they have invaded Venezuela, kidnapped President Maduro and First Combatant Flores, and held the country at gunpoint to acquiesce to their demands for oil. By proxy, they have held the whole of Latin America and the Caribbean as hostage, forcing all countries to end any and all oil exports to their next domino in the region: Cuba.
On January 29, the White House declared Cuba “an unusual and extraordinary threat,” and announced tariffs on any country doing business with the Cuba, declaring its intention to seize oil getting into the country by any means. On February 8, the Cuban government announced that it would be out of jet fuel. This not only means that people would be unable to travel out of the island, but also that medicines and food would cease to enter, formula would no longer be easily accessible for babies, and other catastrophic impacts. On February 9, the US intercepted an oil tanker all the way in the Indian Ocean for allegedly violating its ban on crude oil sales to Cuba. This amounts to a siege much like Gaza’s in which forced starvation and complete denial of entry for food, power, medical aid, and building materials amidst a genocidal military campaign is still being used to assert US and Zionist objectives against the Palestinian people and their resistance.
For decades, Cuba has stood tall only 90 miles away from the coast of Florida, fighting for a better socialist future and asserting its independence against US imperialism’s attacks on its sovereignty. It has not only improved the livelihood of its own people, but has aided many nations across the world in some of the most heroic acts of international solidarity. This includes waging the fight against political ills such as apartheid by sending their fighters to Angola and Namibia to aid in those countries’ national liberation wars, as well as committing their brigades of doctors to combat health crises such as COVID-19, the 2014 Ebola crisis in Liberia, and much more throughout the years. For these acts of internationalism, Cuba has been punished by US imperialism, a punishment that has escalated into complete economic strangulation under the Trump regime.
The ILPS calls on all organizations and movements to extend their solidarity to Cuba in the midst of this extreme aggression by the US, and to connect their calls for the liberation and self-determination of Palestine, Venezuela, and all nations to the fight for Cuba and its people’s sovereignty and livelihood as well. The League calls on peace-loving governments to immediately send energy and other humanitarian aid into Cuba to stop the crisis. We demand the end of the US blockade of Cuba and for the US out of Latin America and the Caribbean, and out of everywhere!
Signed,
International League of Peoples’ Struggle
