On January 29, 2026, U.S. president Donald Trump issued a new executive order declaring a “national emergency” due to the “unusual and extraordinary threat” that Cuba allegedly poses to the United States. The White House announced it will impose harsh punitive tariffs on any country that trades oil with Cuba.

This is unvarnished economic warfare, a major escalation of Washington’s unrelenting efforts over more than six decades aimed at asphyxiating the Cuban people and overthrowing their socialist revolution.

While acknowledging the extreme hardship its people face, the Cuban government reacted with characteristic defiance. Cuba is “a country of brave and combative people,” it declared in a statement denouncing Trump’s latest threat (reproduced below). “Imperialism is mistaken when it believes that economic pressure and the determination to cause suffering to millions of people will break their determination to defend national sovereignty and prevent Cuba from falling, once again, under U.S. domination.”

In a social media post, Cuba’s foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez wrote: “The situation with respect to the U.S. Govt. constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat… to the national security and foreign policy of all countries, to international peace and security, and to the survival of humanity in the face of the nuclear threat and climate change.”

EDITORIAL

Trump’s new edict came six weeks after the U.S. navy imposed a blockade of Venezuelan oil — effectively cutting off oil shipments to Cuba from that South American country, on which Cuba depended for a large portion of its petroleum imports.

This was followed by the January 3 U.S. military assault in Caracas — an act of naked imperialist aggression, and a blatant violation of international law and of Venezuela’s sovereignty. During that “surgical” strike, U.S. special forces kidnapped Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores and, in the process, killed more than 100 people, including 32 Cuban combatants.

Trump issued this latest executive order a week after threatening to impose a naval blockade of Cuba to completely cut off the supply of oil to the island.

The Cuban Revolution today faces its most dangerous challenge since the October 1962 “missile crisis” when Washington, under President John F. Kennedy, did impose a total naval blockade of Cuba and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

The latest escalation comes at a time when the island’s economy and infrastructure have been stretched to their limits by tightened economic sanctions and the “state sponsor of terrorism” (SSOT) designation imposed by the ruthless Goliath to its north. That designation has made the importation of fuel, medicine, machinery, and other essential commodities more difficult and, in many cases, impossible. Without fuel, power generation and the movement of goods within the country is grinding to a halt.

What do the Yankees fear from this small island in the Caribbean? They fear the example Cuba has set for the world’s workers and farmers and all the oppressed.

Despite its small size and limited resources, Cuba has shown what workers and peasants can accomplish when they wrest power from the capitalist class and use it for the benefit of humanity. After toppling the hated, U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in 1959, the Cuban people and their revolutionary leadership nationalized the banks, industry, and land and opened the road to socialism in the Americas.

Not only did the Cuban Revolution eliminate illiteracy and bring free education to all; not only did it ensure that every Cuban has access to quality health care. The unparalleled internationalism of the Cuban people has also brought desperately needed relief to countries around the world through its medical missions. And it has advanced the cause of social justice and national liberation in places like Angola where, in 1988, Cuban volunteer troops helped deliver a stunning defeat to South Africa, playing a critical role in the overthrow of the racist apartheid regime.

As Cuban historian Ernesto Limia Díaz put it in his October 2025 interview with World-Outlook, “Cuba Is the Moral and Political Compass of the World.” It is that compass and the direction it points for working people and the oppressed of the world that the imperialists hate.

Now, drunk with power following their cowardly attack on Caracas, U.S. financiers and other capitalists are salivating at the possibility of bringing the Cuban people to their knees and toppling their revolutionary government. “Cuba is ready to fall,” Trump crowed after the January 3 attack. U.S. secretary of state Marco Rubio — a darling of the right-wing Cuban exile community — projected this could happen by the end of this year.

Nevertheless — despite the massive, highly advanced military force at their disposal, unquestionably the world’s most lethal — Trump and his ilk, like their predecessors in the White House, have shied away from a direct attack, at least for now. They know that taking on the Cuban people will not be a walk in the park. Cuba is not Venezuela. They know that an attempted invasion or other such direct military assault would not be popular in the United States, especially as the coffins of U.S. soldiers begin to come home.

For the moment, instead of undertaking such a military adventure, U.S. imperialism has opted for tightening the economic noose and fostering a humanitarian crisis that threatens the lives of millions.

Having cut off Cuba’s supply of oil from Venezuela, Washington turned up the pressure on Mexico. After Venezuela, Mexico has been Cuba’s most important source of oil. Facing economic blackmail from the Trump administration, Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum began waffling on her country’s commitments to trade with Cuba. PEMEX — Mexico’s state-owned oil company — announced it cancelled an urgently needed shipment of oil to Cuba scheduled to reach the island by the end of January. Sheinbaum then said the shipment would proceed as an offer of “humanitarian aid” to the island.

Sheinbaum pivoted again on January 27, insisting the decision to hold back the oil was a “sovereign decision,” implying she was not succumbing to Washington’s pressure, but that Mexico would continue to show the island “solidarity.”

But to emerge victorious from this crisis the Cuban people need more than just solidarity in words from the rest of the world, words that — like Sheinbaum’s — become meaningless the instant Washington turns the screws.

Cuba needs material aid, solidarity in action. It needs the governments of oil-producing countries like Mexico and Angola to send tankers; it needs foreign investment in solar cells and wind turbines to help reduce its dependence on fossil fuel. And it needs trade in food products, medicines, and other essentials.

Pressure needs to be brought to bear on those governments now kowtowing to Trump, Rubio, and their ilk to continue to trade with and support the Cuban people, to grant them breathing space so they can defend themselves most effectively.

Working people, students and other young people, and everyone who cares for democracy and human decency in the United States need to come together in united front actions to demand that Washington end its malicious economic warfare, reverse what is effectively an oil blockade on Cuba, and remove the country from the infamous SSOT list. Material aid campaigns to counter the attempted strangulation of Cuba and its people are also necessary. Such efforts can set an example of what can be done in other countries to defend Cuba.

The Cuban revolutionaries and the vast majority of the Cuban people have demonstrated their tenacity and their commitment to a better world, not just for themselves but for humanity.

The Cuban people have made it clear they will not back down.

In Havana, a well-dressed, white-haired woman named Iliana was asked last month by a CNN reporter what she would do if the United States were to attack Cuba as it had done in Venezuela. “We would confront whatever comes with great force, with great determination,” she said, her voice shaking. “And whoever doesn’t have a weapon will throw a stone. We don’t know what is going to happen, but we are willing to die.”

Commenting on a Facebook post by Limia Díaz about defending the Cuban revolution under the current conditions, Mauricio Alonso wrote: “Let’s remember the example of the Vietnamese, who won the war against the Yankees by transporting their weapons on bicycles.”

In his post, ‘We Don’t Know the Word Surrender’, Limia Díaz wrote: “They [the U.S. government] cannot forgive us for being considered a moral compass despite all the difficulties, and the spirit of revenge leads them to act with genocidal cruelty. What will humanity do: succumb to fascism or respond with courage and integrity? ‘Whoever stands with Cuba today, stands for all time.’”

Now is the time for those of us in the belly of the beast to live up to that.

*

Postscript by World-Outlook:
Declaration by the Government of Cuba

We publish below for the information of our readers the declaration the Cuban government issued on January 30, in response to Trump’s “national emergency” executive order vis-à-vis Cuba. The translation from the Spanish-language original is by the Cuban ministry of foreign affairs with minor editing by World-Outlook.

Cuba Condemns and Denounces New Escalation of US Economic Blockade

Statement by the Revolutionary Government

The Revolutionary Government condemns in the strongest terms the new escalation by the US government against Cuba in its efforts to impose a total blockade on fuel supplies to our country.

The executive order issued by the US President on January 29, 2026, declares a supposed national emergency, under which his government will be able to impose trade tariffs on imports of products from countries that supply oil to Cuba.

To justify such extreme action, the text of the order contains an extensive list of lies and defamatory accusations against Cuba. Among them is the absurd assertion that Cuba constitutes an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the national security of the United States. The President himself and his government are aware that no one, or very few, can believe such mendacious arguments, but they do not care. Such is their contempt for the truth, public opinion, and government ethics when it comes to endorsing their aggression against Cuba.

With this decision, the United States government, through blackmail, threats, and direct coercion of third countries, is attempting to impose additional pressure on the economic suffocation measures that have been in place since Trump’s first term to prevent fuel from entering our country. It consolidates a dangerous way of conducting U.S. foreign policy by force and exercising its ambitions to guarantee its imperialist hegemony. As announced, that country claims the right to dictate to sovereign states which nations they can trade with and to which they can export their domestic products.

The executive order of the President of the United States therefore constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and also violates the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace. It confirms that it is the government of that country that is threatening the security, stability, and peace of the region and the world.

The government of the United States has reached this point after 67 years of failing to subdue and destroy a genuine and legitimate political and revolutionary process of full sovereignty, social justice, and the promotion of peace and solidarity with the rest of the world.

Cuba’s historical willingness to engage in serious, responsible dialogue with the United States government, based on international law, sovereign equality, mutual respect, reciprocal benefit, non-interference in internal affairs, and absolute respect for the independence and sovereignty of states, is widely documented.

As everyone knows, including the US government itself, Cuba poses no threat whatsoever to the United States, its national interests, or the well-being of its citizens, who, moreover, have always been treated with respect and hospitality when their government has allowed them to visit the island. Cuba does not threaten or attack any country. It is not subject to sanctions by the international community. It is a peaceful, supportive, and cooperative country, willing to help and contribute to other States.

It is also a country of brave and combative people. Imperialism is mistaken when it believes that economic pressure and the determination to cause suffering to millions of people will break their determination to defend national sovereignty and prevent Cuba from falling, once again, under US domination.

The international community faces the unavoidable challenge of determining whether a crime of this nature could be a sign of things to come or whether sanity, solidarity, and the rejection of aggression, impunity, and abuse will prevail.

We will face this new attack with firmness, equanimity, and the certainty that reason is absolutely on our side. The decision is one: Homeland or Death, We Shall Overcome!

Havana, January 30, 2026

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