Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Jonathan Jackson of Illinois blasted the U.S. oil embargo on Cuba as a “cruel” and “illegal blockade” while visiting the Communist country.
President Donald Trump cut two key supplies of oil for Cuba with the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and by warning Mexico it could face tariffs if it continued selling out to the Communist state. Jayapal and Jackson demanded that the Trump administration “enter into real negotiations” with the Cuban government in a statement released Sunday after they made statements to reporters during their trip to the island, in which Jayapal said the trip was taken in order to allow them to “see the suffering that is happening on the ground” due to the “illegal blockade of energy supplies.”
“The illegal U.S. blockade of fuel to Cuba—90 miles south of the United States—adds to the longest embargo in world history and is causing untold suffering to the Cuban people,” Jayapal and Jackson said in a statement released by the former. “The United States prevented a single drop of oil from entering Cuba for over three months. This is cruel collective punishment—effectively an economic bombing of the infrastructure of the country—that has produced permanent damage. It must stop immediately.”
I spent the last few days on a Congressional delegation to Cuba to see firsthand the devastation and suffering caused by the U.S. blockade of fuel.
Read my full statement. pic.twitter.com/V0OwZb4AkL
— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) April 5, 2026Should the U.S. lift its oil embargo on Cuba?
During the Congressional junket to Cuba, Jayapal and Jackson, both members of the left-wing Progressive Caucus, met with members of the Communist regime in Cuba, Reuters reported.
“Let´s bring the rhetoric down. People are suffering. And they are suffering for no good reason,” Jackson told reporters during the trip.
The Cuban government announced in September that Joanne Chesimard, also known as Assata Shakur, died in Havana after fleeing to the Communist regime following a 1979 prison escape where she was serving a sentence for her part in the fatal shooting of a New Jersey police officer.
“True reform will only come from charting a new course,” Jayapal and Jackson claimed in the statement. “The United States and Cuba must immediately enter into real negotiations that provide for the dignity and freedom of the Cuban people and the tremendous benefits to the American people that will accrue from a real collaboration between our two countries.”
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