Socialist Alliance (Australia): Hands off Cuba! End the US blockade!
The Socialist Alliance strongly condemns the United States government’s latest threats against Cuba and stands in solidarity with the Cuban people resisting US imperialism.
US President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order declaring a national emergency due to the “unusual and extraordinary” threat the Cuban government supposedly poses to US security and foreign policy. The order announced that the US would impose tariffs on goods from any countries that, directly or indirectly, sell or provide oil to Cuba.
Since its imperialist attacks on Venezuela, the US has blocked all Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba.
Trump is also pressuring the Mexican government, Cuba’s primary oil supplier, to halt shipments to the country. Mexico’s state-run oil company Pemex has already cancelled a shipment planned for this month.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has warned that Trump’s executive order “could trigger a large-scale humanitarian crisis, directly affecting hospitals, food supplies, and other basic services for the Cuban people”.
Cubans are already experiencing severe power blackouts due to fuel shortages, and from damage to its national energy grid from Hurricane Melissa last year.
Trump’s most recent threats are a continuation of US imperialist policy since the Cuban people overthrew the US-backed Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in 1959.
Since then, the US has undertaken or sponsored terrorist attacks, a military invasion and an economic blockade against the Cuban people, with the explicitly stated aim of bringing about “hunger, desperation and the overthrow of government”, as the US State Department admitted in 1960.
The US’s illegal 64-year blockade constitutes a form of economic warfare, impacting the Cuban people’s access to food, medicine, fuel and other critical goods.
The US maintains its cruel policy despite widespread international opposition, evidenced by the United Nations General Assembly voting almost-unanimously every year to end the blockade.
The US’s National Security Strategy, released last December, is an openly imperialist strategy aimed at control of or access to Latin America’s resources and projection of US power in the region. It reinforces the Monroe Doctrine — a 200-year-old imperialist ideology asserting the US’s “right” to dominate the Americas.
The US’s attacks on Venezuela were just the beginning. It has previously issued threats against Colombia, Mexico and now, Cuba.
Cuba has condemned US imperialist policies across the world, including its support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It plays a significant role in international solidarity, sending medical staff overseas to train and assist personnel in countries of the Global South.
Cubans are mourning the deaths of 32 of their citizens, killed by the US military during its January 3 attacks on Venezuela.
We condemn the US’s imperialist aggression and the Australian Labor government’s silence in the face of its ally’s flouting of international law.
We recognise that the US is the biggest threat to peace and democracy in the world, with its unprecedented military drive — the US’s military budget is set to surpass US$1 trillion for the first time in history — and aggressive foreign policy.
The Australian government is a willing party to US imperialist foreign policy, demonstrated in its total commitment to the AUKUS military alliance. We must pressure Labor to break its alliance with US imperialism and pursue a foreign policy based on peace and justice.
We support the global demand for an immediate and unconditional lifting of the US blockade on Cuba.
[The Socialist Alliance National Executive adopted this statement on February 3.]