Tag Archives: #NoAlBloqueo

Canada must reject U.S. coercion against Cuba and countries that would help

by Jim Hodgson

Canada must condemn the ongoing U.S. embargo against Cuba, say two coalitions of Canadian non-governmental organizations (including churches, trade unions, aid groups and human rights defenders).

The Americas Policy Group (APG) and Common Frontiers wrote Feb. 20 to Prime Minister Mark Carney,Foreign Minister Anita Anand, and Secretary of State (International Development) Randeep Sarai. Their letter condemned the new “coercive measures” – threats of higher tariffs – announced by the Trump administration that make it harder to get food, medicine and fuel.

Before I go too far into this, here’s an action you can take. (And thank you if you already did so!) The Canadian Network on Cuba has worked with MP Alexandre Boulerice to promote an important on-line petition to the members of Parliament. (Once you have signed, be sure to respond to an email asking you to confirm your signature.)

Text of the letter is available in English, French and Spanish.

The English version follows below: 

February 20, 2026

Re: CANADA MUST REJECT UNLAWFUL U.S. COERCIVE MEASURES TO WITHHOLD FUEL FROM CUBA AND EXPEDITE HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE

Dear Prime Minister Mark Carney, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand and Secretary of State (International Development) Randeep Sarai:

The Americas Policy Group (APG) and Common Frontiers, coalitions formed by dozens of respected Canadian civil society organizations, are deeply concerned about the human rights impacts of a U.S. executive order imposing a fuel blockade on Cuba. We call on Canada to immediately reject this dangerous, coercive action which is incompatible with principles of sovereignty, non-intervention and self-determination, essential for a democratic, equitable and peaceful international order.

A month ago, our coalitions called on the Government of Canada to unequivocally condemn U.S. attacks and threats of intervention in Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, and Cuba as violations of the United Nations Charter and longstanding international norms. We warned about the implications of U.S. security policy that promises to “reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine,” a doctrine used in the past to justify brutal interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In October 2025, United Nations member states at the General Assembly voted for the 33rd consecutive time for an end to a decades-long U.S. embargo against Cuba, which has caused enormous hardship and scarcity for the Cuban people. This is reaching crisis proportions as a result of an executive order signed by President Trump on January 29 authorizing the imposition of trade tariffs on any country that directly or indirectly provides oil to Cuba.

UN human rights experts have stated “there is no right under international law to impose economic penalties on third States for engaging in lawful trade with another sovereign country.” The UN experts conclude that the imposition of a fuel blockade on Cuba is “a serious violation of international law and a grave threat to a democratic and equitable international order.”

Member organizations of the Americas Policy Group and Common Frontiers have a long history of cooperation with Cuban civil society organizations and are hearing from them about the impacts of blocking oil supplies to their country. Cuba is highly dependent on imported fuel for essential services, including electricity generation, hospitals, health services, water and sanitation, public transportation, food production and distribution. Moreover, Cuba has been experiencing a deepening socio-economic crisis due to a 60-year financial and trade blockade by the United States, as well as the impacts of increasing extreme weather events. U.S. unilateral measures of economic and political coercion deliberately seek to deepen the suffering of the Cuban people to force regime change. We condemn these measures in the strongest possible terms and are horrified by the collective punishment of the civilian population that we are witnessing.

As an illustration of the dire situation on the ground, the Secretary General of the Provincial Union of Public Administration Workers of Havana shared this message with us: “Our members are experiencing firsthand the effects of the measures taken to prevent fuel from entering the country. For example, our municipal services have been affected; services that are vital to the population like solid waste collection. Without fuel we have no way to collect the garbage. The population, along with municipal workers, are doing everything we can to prevent consequences such as an epidemic or the spread of diseases. We will not give up.”

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has sounded the alarm about other consequences and reiterated his call “to lift unilateral sectoral measures, given their broad and indiscriminate impact on the population.” As the High Commissioner has reported, intensive care units, emergency rooms, and ambulance services are compromised, as are the production, delivery, and storage of vaccines, blood products, and other temperature-sensitive medications. Power cuts are undermining access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene. The fuel shortage has also disrupted the rationing system, the regulated basic food basket, and social protection networks, including school meals, maternity homes, and nursing homes. Vulnerable groups are disproportionately affected. The right to life and the ability to enjoy many other rights are in jeopardy.

Our coalitions are heartened by Canada’s long, highly respected history of independent foreign policy towards Cuba and uninterrupted diplomatic relations with the country since 1945. This includes the Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act (FEMA), Canadian legislation that protects Canadian sovereignty and commercial interests from U.S. laws and policies that try to impose their jurisdiction inside Canada. We also welcome Canada’s past support for multilateral efforts to end the unjust U.S. economic embargo, such as repeated votes in the United Nations General Assembly condemning the blockade. We call for this principled stance to be upheld and strengthened.

Without delay, we urge the Government of Canada to:

  • Publicly and unequivocally condemn the ongoing U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, including coercive measures announced by the Trump administration that threaten access to the necessities of life: including food, medicine and fuel.
  • Reaffirm Canada’s commitment to the UN Charter, international law, and the human rights obligations Canada has willingly undertaken, including respect for sovereignty, self-determination and the rights to food, health, and wellbeing.
  • Deepen bilateral humanitarian cooperation with Cuba, including direct Canadian assistance to alleviate suffering among the civilian population.
  • Work with regional allies – including at the UN and in other spaces for multilateral action – to end the oil blockade and other punitive economic measures against Cuba, as well as to expand access to humanitarian supplies.
  • Reject all threats of intervention or coercion against countries in the Americas and promote peace, diplomacy, dialogue and regional stability, in accordance with Canada’s stated values and international obligations.

We welcome the opportunity to discuss our recommendations with you and stress that while humanitarian relief is urgently needed, access to fuel and respect for sovereignty are indispensable.

Sincerely,

Americas Policy Group Steering Committee

Common Frontiers Steering Committee

The Americas Policy Group (APG) is a national network of Canadian civil society organizations working for human rights and social and environmental justice in Latin America and the Caribbean. It brings together international development and humanitarian NGOs, human rights organizations, labour unions, faith-based and solidarity groups, and research institutions.

Common Frontiers is a national coalition composed of labour, environmental, faith based and social justice organizations focused on the Americas. We amplify the struggles of organizations and communities with which our members hold long-term relationships throughout the region, and who work to defend democracy, human rights, labour rights, strong public services and the environment.

“Aggressive” U.S. policy tightens the screws on Cuba’s people 

The White House has a new document on Cuba. To those of us who have been watching for a while, it seems more acute: it tightens the screws on a people already suffering severe effects—shortages of power, food, and medicine—provoked by the U.S. blockade.

Esteban Lazo, president of Cuba’s National People’s Power Assembly, called the statement aggressive and unjust.

The statement talks about freedom for the people, democracy, respect for human rights and human dignity, and protection for dissidents and “peaceful demonstrators.” But it also tightens restrictions on U.S. citizens who travel to Cuba. Academic travellers must “engage in a full-time program of activities that enhance contact with the Cuban people, improve civil society, and promote the independence of the people from the authorities.”

It limits how Cubans might seek asylum in the United States and how family members send money back home. It gives U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (a second-generation Cuban-American) the power to identify any entity under the control of, or acting for or on behalf of Cuban companies, as well as to regulate their financial transactions.

It also specifies that that the Trump administration will oppose petitions before the United Nations and other international forums that demand the lifting of the embargo.

There’s a new list of “prohibited officials,” including ministers, deputy minister, members or employees of Cuba’s Parliament and Supreme Court and even the editors of Cuban state media organizations.

“Who are they trying to deceive?” ask the editors of Granma, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, in a front-page article today. “All this has been suffered by the Cuban people for more than 60 years.”

In social media posts June 30, President Miguel Díaz-Canel said that the new U.S. policy statement “responds to narrow interests that are not representative of the majority in that country, and further reinforces the economic blockade.” The goal, he added, is to cause the greatest harm and suffering to the Cuban people. “The impact will be felt, but we will not be defeated.”

Two weeks earlier, Cuba’s Catholic bishops recognized the critical situation faced by the Cuban people. In a Message for the Jubilee Year, they described: “the avid search for essential goods, the prolonged lack of electricity, the growing emigration, the disillusion, the apathy due to the repetition of promises that never come to fruition… the sadness.” Among the victims of the crisis are: “the elderly, who are alone and abandoned… those who feel they can’t freely express their convictions,” as well as those who are living on the streets, eating from the garbage bins, suffering from addictions. “They’re resentful or broken, and becoming ever more violent… lacking love, and empty of hope.” They comprise an “uncertain future,” and not only in Cuba, but also for the world.

The bishops called on “everyone, but primarily those who hold higher responsibilities” to “create a climate without pressures nor internal or external restrictions” for the “changes that Cuba needs.” The use of “external” refers to the blockade and other measures of the U.S. government; the “internal” to the political actions of the Cuban government.

Trump and Rubio use sanctions and other measures to try to force regime change. They pay no heed to the needs of the Cuban people, but churches, unions and non-governmental organizations around the world continue to press for an end to the blockade and for increased humanitarian aid. 

“Cuba does not live in peace. Cuba lives with permanent aggression.”

The Mexico City daily newspaper, La Jornada, published an interview May 9 with Cuba’s vice-minister of external relations, Carlos Fernández De Cossío.

Cuba’s lack of peace, he emphasized, is caused by Washington’s policies against the people of Cuba, characterized by economic coercion with the blockade. He warned that while practically the whole world has been the object of tariff threats by the administration of Donald Trump, “towards Cuba, the onslaught is already underway, and only military aggression is lacking” to complete the siege.

In the face of new global geopolitics, with Trump in power, he warned that the White House now attacks several countries: “you see this in Panama, Greenland, Canada;” the focus could also be the progressive governments elsewhere in Latin America.

“There are threats against several governments, and the United States will attempt, through force, economic pressure, and other methods, to influence the political processes of our countries. Venezuela is a country under attack. It’s evident that the region faces that reality….  The absence of armed conflict does not mean living in peace.” He also said that there is pressure on nations in the hemisphere to adopt measures to “reduce the ‘harmful influence’ of China.”

Over the past two-and-a-half years, I have worked with my former colleagues at The United Church of Canada, other churches, several trade unions and international development organizations to draw attention to the impact of U.S. sanctions (“the blockade”) on the Cuban people. Now that Canada’s new cabinet ministers are confirmed, we’ll likely launch a new call to “take action” in solidarity with Cuba.

Fernández de Cossío was in Mexico City for meetings May 8 with Mexico’s External Relations department (SRE) to talk about migration issues. 

With a long career in diplomacy, Fernández de Cossío has served as director for the United States in the Cuban foreign ministry. He also served as ambassador in Canada (2004-05) and South Africa, and was Cuba’s representative in the peace process between the government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

He said spaces like the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) are key to creating a counterweight to Washington. “They must move beyond declarations and formality. Getting there is not easy.” What follows is a lightly-edited translation of his interview with La Jornada writers, Emir Olivares and Arturo Sánchez Jiménez.

Migration challenges

Q: What are the challenges to the region from the new anti-migration policies of Trump?

R: If the great gap between the industrialized, developed countries and the countries in processes of development is not reduced, it’s natural that there will be a growing flow from the south toward the north to seek better living conditions. That goes on in Africa, in Asia and in our continent, where the flow toward the United States, whether it be regular or irregular. The reality varies by each country.

Q: And for Cuba?

R: The case of Cuba is unique. The United States has applied a dynamic against it that both pushes and pulls migration, whether regular or irregular. Washington’s official policy is economic coercion. The blockade, aimed at depressing and making living conditions as difficult as possible, provokes a migration drive.

Furthermore, since the 1960s, Cuban immigrants have been privileged, regardless of how they cross the border, by sea or by land. They are assimilated, granted refugee status, protected, and provided with employment. Additionally, there is the Cuban Adjustment Act, which means that regardless of how they entered the United States, Cuban migrants can acquire residency within one year of arriving in the United States. No citizen of any other country in the world has that privilege. If Washington does not put an end to this reality, the irregular flow will continue.

Q: What do you think of the U.S. propaganda shared in mass media and internet platforms against migration, headed by the secretary of homeland security, Kristi Noem?

R: It’s media opportunism that seeks support in the population. They unfairly criminalize all immigrants. To a certain extent, society has been polarized since its inception, with cultural and racial prejudices. And it’s not difficult for these politicians to try to stir up those feelings to promote a policy of rejecting immigrants and blaming them for many of the problems: drug use, unemployment, crime, and social polarization. If some migrants participate in crime and social unrest, it’s because these phenomena already exist in the United States.

Historically, the United States has believed that Cuba belongs to them, but in reality, it is an inability to accept that Cuba is, and has the right to be, a sovereign state.

Medical students at the University of Medical Sciences in Matanzas come from around the world. (Photo: Jim Hodgson, 2007)

Campaign against the health brigades

Q: The campaign against Cuba’s medical brigades is within these new coercive measures?

R: Yes. Since February, they have threatened that countries that continue medical cooperation programs with Cuba, their officials and family members will lose their visas and their ability to travel to the United States. Today, around 60 nations have these programs. They provide care to thousands of people. It is a historic project, for which Cuba has been praised by governments, several UN secretaries-general, and even a US president (Barack Obama).

The campaign seeks two things: to discredit this symbol of the success of Cuban society, since one of the priorities of anti-Cuban sectors is to prevent recognition of Cuba’s successes. The second is to cut off a legitimate source of income obtained from agreements with countries that are more favourable (such as Mexico), although historically these are services for which not a cent has been received.

Q: Do Trump’s new geopolitics bring additional pressures to the hemisphere?

R: It’s part of the US government’s hostile and imposing behavior toward the region, and it’s a challenge not only for Cuba but for the entire region. There’s pressure to adopt measures to reduce “China’s harmful influence.” We find it absurd. In a recent congressional hearing, they showed alleged Chinese military bases in Cuba (they used to say they were Russian, during the Cold War). They presented images of what could have been a soccer field or a rice field to say: “This is evidence that there are Chinese military bases in Cuba,” but there wasn’t a single military officer there, no one from the Pentagon or the CIA, from the institutions that are supposed to bear witness to this.

There’s threatening behavior that tries to impose their will on the hemisphere. We saw this in Panama. We see it in Greenland (even though it is not part of the region) and with Canada. It’s a challenge for us all and it’s dangerous.

Q: What have been the errors of the revolutionary regime?

R: Fidel Castro once said that the biggest mistake was thinking that anyone knew how to build socialism and that it would be easy to do so. In Cuba, specific errors may have been made in some aspects of economic policy, in elements of social policy, but it’s very difficult to judge if one takes into account the challenges posed by the aggression of a power like the United States.

Q: Are the ideals of Martí, Castro and others still valid?

R: The ideas of Martí, Fidel, Marx, Engels, Lenin and other Marxists remain relevant and continue to shape our thinking. The challenge we face with youth is enormous, due to the communication influence that large corporations have exerted, a monopoly that is difficult to break. This, combined with a very depressed economic situation, has a serious and dangerous impact on the population. We are working with this; we accept it as a challenge, a very great challenge facing Cuban society.