The Venceremos Brigade National Coordinating Committee, representing the oldest continuous US-Cuba solidarity project and a founding member of the National Network on Cuba, condemns in the strongest terms the Trump administration’s January 29th executive order and the ongoing escalation of the United States’ illegal and inhumane economic blockade against Cuba.
This new executive order, which weaponizes tariffs to asphyxiate Cuba’s access to essential fuel, is not an isolated act. It is a deliberate escalation in a 65-year campaign of relentless hostility. It follows the malicious re-listing of Cuba on the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, the expansion of sanctions during a global pandemic, and constant threats of military aggression. This policy constitutes a collective punishment of the Cuban people, aimed at generating hardship and destabilization to overthrow a sovereign government whose example of socialism, anti-racism, queer and women’s liberation, and internationalist solidarity remains a profound threat to U.S. imperialism and white supremacy.
We understand this blockade as the primary tool of the U.S. government’s genocidal war against Cuba. It is a form of economic warfare that has cost Cuba billions, prevents access to food and medicine, causes blackouts, and limits technological development – all in a futile attempt to overturn the gains of the Cuban Revolution.
We see this escalation within the broader context of U.S. imperialism’s fear of a successful alternative. Cuba’s legacy – from its support of the defeat of colonialism in Angola and unwavering solidarity with Palestine, to its world-class healthcare and recent adoption of a profoundly progressive Family Code – demonstrates that another world is possible. The Venceremos Brigade itself, born in 1969 to strengthen struggles for justice in the United States through exchange and collaboration with the Cuban revolutionary project, stands as a living testament to the power of people-to-people solidarity across borders imposed by empires.
Therefore, we declare:
- We unequivocally condemn the January 29th executive order and all measures that tighten the illegal blockade.
- We rise up in solidarity with the Cuban people and their right to sovereignty, self-determination, and a system of their own choosing.
- We reaffirm our core principles: an end to the blockade, the removal of Cuba from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, the return of Guantánamo Bay to Cuba, and the end of all US-imposed travel restrictions and US government attempts to overthrow the Cuban revolution.
- We call on all our allied organizations within the African diaspora, LGBTQIA+, Palestinian, Indigenous, Chicano, labor, tenant rights, and all social justice movements who have stood with us to join in loud, public condemnation of this economic warfare against Cuba.
- We urge all people of conscience in the United States to demand their representatives oppose this cruel and failed policy, and to join the growing movement to end the blockade permanently.
The Venceremos Brigade has carried the message of Cuban solidarity for 56 years. In this moment of heightened aggression, we will not be silent. We will continue to travel, to build bridges, to deliver material aid, and to organize. We remind the U.S. government: you will not tell us who our friends are and you cannot blockade solidarity.
¡Cuba Sí, Bloqueo No! ¡Hasta la Victoria Siempre!
National Coordinating Committee, Venceremos Brigade
Venceremos Brigade 