On the evening of Monday January 20, 2025, US President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order which revoked all executive orders issued by the Biden administration. Among the revoked orders was Biden’s eleventh hour removal of Cuba from the US State Department’s State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) list. We recognize this action by the Trump administration as part of a long history of US-sponsored counter-revolutionary efforts targeting the Cuban people and an intensification of the US government’s war on Cuba. We also recognize that the Biden administration, by waiting until the last minute to issue an order that they knew would almost certainly be rescinded, robbed Cuba of the time needed to gather the resources required to address a profound economic crisis created by the United States. The US government has a long bipartisan history of callously toying with the lives of the Cuban people, and this is yet another disgusting example.
In 1969, the oldest Cuba solidarity brigade in the US was founded just ten years after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution at a time when it was only possible to travel to Cuba from the United States through extra-legal means. Those who volunteered on that first brigade did so in response to the United States’ launching of a war against Cuba – a war designed to destabilize the country, create mass suffering, and build the conditions necessary for the overthrow of the revolutionary socialist government. The first brigadistas of the Venceremos Brigade recognized that the only so-called crime that the people of Cuba had committed against the United States was breaking free from the colonial status imposed upon their island for more than a century. It was within this context that the first brigade and the US-Cuba solidarity movement were started, so that those of us in the belly of the beast could play our role in building solidarity with Cuba and ending the US war against the Cuban people.
The centerpiece of the US government’s war on Cuba – the economic blockade – is explicitly designed “to bring about hunger, desperation, and the overthrow of [the] government” by cutting off Cuba from international banking and trade. Not only does the blockade prevent trade between the US and Cuba but it has also proven to be a successful deterrent against other countries doing business with Cuba for fear of being blackmailed by the US. The impact of this economic isolation on the day to day lives of the Cuban people is profound – widespread shortages of food, fuel and medicine, nationwide blackouts, crumbling infrastructure they can not import materials to repair, mass migration, and death.
Alongside this policy of economic strangulation, the US government has also pursued a military policy of sustained terror against civilians. This has included the funding of terrorists to sabotage and destroy resource centers in Cuba, the bombing of roads and ports, the bombing of commercial airlines with Cuban nationals on them, the attempted assassinations of leaders, and the murder of revolutionary teachers as young as fifteen who volunteered to go into the countryside to teach Cubans to read.
Cuba has long been a beacon and a leader in the global movement for liberation that is challenging US hegemony. Cuba’s practice of internationalism – which has ranged from aiding the liberation of Africa, Latin America, and Asia in the Twentieth Century, to the training of doctors and teachers throughout the world (including in the United States) – has always been seen as a threat. It is for this simple reason and with the absence of any evidence, that the US government continues its projection of its own crimes onto Cuba with its absurd designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terror.
We, as organizations within the US-Cuba solidarity movement, unequivocally reject this shameful policy and stand firm in our solidarity with Cuba, their people, and their revolution.
We demand the end of the US blockade of Cuba, all US-imposed travel restrictions, and all regime change programs.
We demand the end of the illegal US military occupation of Guantánamo Bay.
We demand that Cuba be permanently removed from the US State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.
As the conditions of fascism continue to intensify within the United States, we implore all people of conscience to rise up together and resist the inhumane policies of the US government. Let us strengthen movements for justice in the US through exchange and collaboration with Cuba. Let us join organizations fighting for justice. Let us build together.
¡Cuba sí, bloqueo no!
Co-Signers
- Venceremos Brigade – @vb4cuba
- National Network on Cuba – @nationalnetworkoncuba
- Lowcountry Action Committee – @lctakesaction
- Community Movement Builders – @communitymovementbuilders
- Michigan Action for Cuba Committee – @michiganactionforcuba
- Michigan General Defense Committee – @michigangdc
- Hood Communist – @hoodcommunist
- Workers World Party – @workersworld_party
- International Action Committee (https://www.facebook.com/internationalactioncenter)
- Activist News Network – @activistnewsnetwork
- CurbFest for Political Prisoners – @curbfest
- Malcolm X Commemoration Committee – https://www.mxcc519.org/
- ProLibertad Freedom Campaign – @prolibertadfc
- Diaspora Palante Committee – @diasporapalantecollective
- Bronx Anti-War – @bxantiwar2
- The Campaign to Bring Mumia Home – @bringmumiahome
- People’s Organization for Progress – @njpop1982
- Build More Unity – @buildmoreunity
- Anakbayan North Jersey – @anakbayan.northjersey
Venceremos Brigade 