Nationwide blackouts are now compromising intensive care units and emergency rooms and endangering the refrigeration needed to keep vaccines and medicines safe. The loss of power is also cutting off access to clean water for millions of people, as water systems across the island depend on electricity that has become unreliable. The World Food Program (WFP) warns that these shortages are making it extremely difficult to distribute food, leaving nursing homes, schools, and hospitals struggling to provide enough for those who need it most.
For more than six decades, U.S. policy has centered on an economic embargo meant to isolate Cuba. What began as a political tool has become a system that places the heaviest burden on ordinary Cuban people, not those in power. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has opposed the embargo since 1969, and for decades it has affirmed that broad economic sanctions which harm civilians violate human dignity and disproportionately impact the most vulnerable. It has consistently held that policies which rely on widespread deprivation to achieve political ends are unjust. In February, the PC(USA) joined other denominations in a Call to Stand with the Cuban People.
Congress now has an opportunity to take a different course. The Freedom to Export to Cuba Act (H.R. 7521 and S. 136), introduced by Rep. Jim McGovern and Sen. Ron Wyden, offers a concrete step forward. These bills would begin to lift the U.S. embargo, making it easier for food, medicine, and other basic necessities to reach people, and opening the door to more normal relations between the United States and Cuba. At the same time, a War Powers Resolution (S.J.Res. 124), introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine, would ensure that any move toward military action against Cuba requires explicit approval from Congress and would require an end to unauthorized hostilities.
Contact your Senators and Representative and urge them to support legislation to stand with the Cuban people and prevent unauthorized military action. The people of Cuba should not bear the cost of policies carried out in our name.