Solidarity with Cuba, Threatened by the U.S. Now!
Statement by the Austria-Cuba Friendship Association on the renewed intensification of the blockade and the threat to Cuba posed by the latest executive order issued by the President of the United States on May 1, 2026.
Cuba is an island that depends on imports of raw materials, food, and energy. For more than sixty years, the U.S. has blocked trade with Cuba with the aim of causing hardship and misery in this sovereign state, as well as provoking social unrest on the island. Now, the U.S. government is attempting to complete the economic strangulation of the island and even prevent, through the use of military force, Cuba from obtaining the oil it needs for its survival.
The United Nations Resident Coordinator described the situation in early April as follows:
Three power outages that lasted all day or longer; power has since been restored.
96,000 scheduled hospital surgeries have been canceled or postponed, 11,000 of which were for children.
3,000 children were unable to receive their vaccinations on time.
One million people depend on water supplied by tanker trucks, for which there is no fuel. (The lack of drinking water poses a risk of epidemics.)
Teachers can no longer reach their schools due to a lack of transportation.
411,000 children can no longer attend their schools.
The supply of food and basic daily necessities has been disrupted due to the suspension of transportation: production, storage, distribution (the entire supply chain!).
The most vulnerable groups—nearly 300,000 elderly people, 114,000 of whom have physical disabilities—lack the items necessary for daily life.
Supplies for some 3,000 dialysis patients are not guaranteed.
Approximately 32,000 pregnant women no longer have access to medical care and assistance, nor to childbirth services.
Five million chronically ill patients no longer have guaranteed access to doctors, necessary medications, and health services.
The humanitarian aid contained in 170 containers (worth $6.3 million) cannot be distributed due to a lack of transportation.
Not even the UN can import fuel for its own use.
On May 1, 2026, Trump issued another executive order containing the following provisions:
All assets in the U.S. belonging to individuals or legal entities operating in the island’s energy, mining, financial services, or defense sectors will be confiscated.
The U.S. is establishing a global financial persecution system: banks in third countries are threatened with being denied access to the U.S. financial system if they conduct transactions with Cuban companies.
The immediate application of the sanctions precludes any deadline for filing a judicial appeal.
From an international perspective, this executive order constitutes direct and unilateral interference by the United States. It is an unacceptable act of interference in the internal affairs of another state.
It is a clear attempt to impose a political model through economic coercion and to use domestic legislation to dictate the policies of other nations.
This measure presents the international community with an impossible choice between its relations with Cuba and access to the U.S. market and financial system. The world must decide whether to participate in the U.S. financial and economic system or to side with Cuba, in support of the existence of sovereign and independent states beyond the military and economic power of the United States.
How much longer will the world continue to tolerate this abuse? How much longer will the world stand idly by while children and innocent people are murdered in Gaza, Lebanon, or Iran? How much longer will the world accept this U.S. policy of maximum pressure against the heroic Cuban people? Because the world must be aware that what is being done today to Cuba, Palestine, and Iran could later happen to any other state.
In Cuba, the sovereignty and independence of peoples are defended. In Cuba, the right of peoples to self-determination is defended. And in Cuba, the conviction remains that a just cause, defended by a heroic people, is not abandoned. That is why no one should expect Cuba to surrender.
This is a collective punishment that the U.S. seeks to impose on Cuba, an attempt at strangulation aimed at provoking a humanitarian crisis and, consequently, social unrest.
But the U.S. will not achieve its goal this time either.
Last October, 165 states urged the U.S. at the UN General Assembly to end its unilateral blockade against Cuba, which violates international law. However, the U.S. continues its blockade and seeks to provoke a crisis in Cuba through its criminal and unjust policy of economic, commercial, and financial blockade. For more than six decades, the United States has waged this war against the sovereign Republic of Cuba and believes it can deal Cuba the “final blow” through hunger and misery. At the same time, the United States, through economic threats, seeks to force third countries to support its criminal acts.
But the United States is mistaken, for the conscious, brave, and revolutionary people of Cuba will never turn against their elected government and their country, regardless of the unilateral coercive measures adopted by the United States’ imperialist power politics.
Furthermore, the U.S. government uses blatant lies as a pretext for its policy of aggression:
For example, Cuba is accused of being a threat to U.S. internal security. The empire has brandished and continues to brandish similar false and fabricated claims as a pretext for extrajudicial killings in the Pacific and the Caribbean, for the criminal attack against Venezuela on January 3, and for the kidnapping of that country’s acting president and first lady.
The unscrupulous leaders of the United States must take note that Cuba demonstrates that another world—a world of sovereignty and self-determination—is possible.
Cuba is a country that refuses to be subdued and is unwilling to submit to an empire. That is why it is blockaded and attacked, under the cynical pretext of doing so “for the good of the Cuban people.”
Cuba exports education and healthcare, not weapons or death.
The greatest threat to the world is the aggressive attitude of the U.S. and the EU’s complacency regarding it.
We express our firm and unwavering solidarity with Cuba, committed to revolutionary and humanitarian values.
Therefore, we demand that the U.S.:
cease its aggression and all attempts to economically strangle Cuba;
unconditionally respect international law;
unconditionally respect the United Nations Charter;
remove Cuba from the U.S.’s illegal list of countries accused of supporting terrorism.
Therefore, we demand that the European Union:
condemn the actions of the U.S., which exercise the right of the strongest;
speak out categorically against the U.S. economic, commercial, and financial blockade against Cuba;
support Cuba through bilateral development agreements to compensate for the damage caused by the criminal blockade.
Therefore, we demand that the Austrian government:
that it demand the United States and the EU lift their unilateral coercive measures against Cuba;
that, on the basis of an active and neutral foreign policy, it take a clear stand against the U.S. blockade measures and thus comply with the UN Resolution on the “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba” of October 29, 2025, which was also adopted by Austria.
Long live Cuba!
Peace and freedom for all peoples!
Long live the Revolution!
Long live international solidarity!