April 6 (UPI) — Two Democratic lawmakers concluded a trip to Cuba on Monday by calling for the United States and Cuba to begin “real negotiations” and denouncing the Trump administration’s “economic bombing” of Havana.
Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal, of Washington, and Jonathan Jackson, of Illinois, returned to the United States following a five-day visit to Cuba. They said they spoke with officials and witnessed the effects of President Donald Trump‘s monthslong de facto oil blockade of the island nation.
The lawmakers said they saw premature babies in incubators put at risk due to Cuba’s energy crisis, children out of school because teachers have no fuel to travel to school and cancer patients being denied treatment because of a lack of medicine.
“This is cruel collective punishment — effectively an economic bombing of the infrastructure of the country — that has produced permanent damage,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement.
“It must stop immediately.”
The Trump administration has been enforcing a monthslong policy of choking off oil supplies to Cuba, plunging the socialist nation into a worsening energy and humanitarian crisis. On Jan. 29, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency with respect to Cuba and created a process to penalize countries that provide it with oil. According to a recent U.N. system action plan, citing Cuban authorities, no fuel imports have been recorded since Dec. 13.
“This disruption has triggered a severe energy shock, characterized by a critical fuel shortage affecting electricity generation, transportation and essential logistics across the country,” the U.N. report published last week said.
Widespread blackouts, fuel rationing and electricity shortages have been reported, it said.
The two Democratic lawmakers said they met with Cuba leaders in religion, civi society and the government, as well as dissidents, and all agreed that the blockade — which they called illegal — must end.
“We do not believe that the majority of Americans would want this kind of cruelty and inhumanity to continue in our name,” they said.
The pair met with President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, who said in a statement that he denounced to them the “energy siege decreed by the current U.S. government” and reiterated “the willingness of our Government to sustain a serious and responsible dialogue and to find solutions to the existing differences.”
Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez of Cuba said in a statement that he also told the lawmakers about the situation facing his country and their “willingness for serious and responsible dialogue to try to find solutions to bilateral problems.”
The Democrats said the Cuba government has sent signals that the country is ready for reform, pointing to its pardoning last week of more than 2,000 prisoners and efforts to liberalize its economy, while arguing the remaining obstacles to its progress is U.S. policy, which they called “outdated” from the Cold War-era.
“True reform will only come from charting a new course,” they said.
Trump has turned his attention to Cuba after detaining Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro, in early January in a clandestine military operation.
He has said it is “a failing nation” and described it as on the precipice of collapse.
“As we achieve a historic transformation in Venezuela, we’re also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba,” he said on March 7 during the Shield of the Americas Summit.
“Cuba’s at the end of the line.”