50 Bipartisan U.S. Lawmakers Urge Trump to End Cuba Blockade

Three island-wide blackouts struck Cuba in March alone. The United Nations counted 50,000 postponed surgeries in February. Air Canada and two Russian carriers suspended Havana flights in early February, citing fuel shortages on the ground. These are the conditions that drove 50 U.S. representatives and senators, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gregory Meeks of New York and Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee Ranking Member Tim Kaine of Virginia, to send a letter to President Trump on April 2 demanding an end to the administration's blockade.

The core target is Executive Order 14380, signed January 29 and in force since January 30, which declared Cuba an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to the United States and imposed tariffs on any country that directly or indirectly sells or provides oil to Cuba. The order effectively severed Cuba's fuel supply chain, including Venezuelan oil the island had historically depended on, and the cascading consequences have been visible ever since: a refinery fire at Havana's Nico López facility in February, hospitals postponing operations, airlines abandoning routes.

"Conditions in Cuba are deteriorating rapidly," the lawmakers wrote. "Widespread blackouts, shortages of basic goods, and the collapse of critical infrastructure are placing extraordinary strain on ordinary Cubans."

The letter argues that 64 years of maximum pressure strategy has produced no political change, and that restricting access to energy and health care "is contrary to American values and is needlessly exacerbating a humanitarian crisis."

Every lever the lawmakers want reversed sits within Trump's executive reach. Rescinding or modifying EO 14380 would immediately lift the oil tariff threat, giving third-party suppliers room to resume fuel deliveries: the most direct path to ending the blackouts and restoring medical equipment in Cuba's hospitals. Removing Cuba from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, which Trump re-imposed on his first day back in office after Biden rescinded it, would unblock the banking channels that currently make remittance transfers from Cuban-American families nearly impossible. Secretary of State Marco Rubio re-created the Cuba Restricted List on January 31, just one day after EO 14380 took effect, blocking financial transactions with dozens of Cuban military-linked entities including Orbit S.A., the island's primary remittance processor. On travel, Trump restored first-term restrictions on educational and people-to-people categories while limiting U.S. commercial flights exclusively to Havana's airport, ending the regional airport access Biden had reopened in 2022. None of that requires legislation. Every one of those changes comes by executive signature.

The political question is whether this letter carries more weight than its predecessors. In February, Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Representative Jim McGovern wrote a similar appeal focused specifically on the oil embargo, arguing that Cuban officials had publicly stated a willingness to negotiate outstanding disputes. That letter drew no public response from the White House. Kaine has also co-sponsored a War Powers Resolution alongside Senators Adam Schiff and Ruben Gallego, warning Trump that any military action against Cuba requires congressional authorization. The simultaneous pressure from multiple legislative fronts points to a coordinated strategy, but Rubio, the principal architect of the maximum pressure campaign, has repeatedly dismissed Democratic demands as insufficient.

"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," the lawmakers wrote. If Trump moves on any of the executive levers cited in the letter, it will be the first concrete policy reversal on Cuba since January 30.