• Communiqué issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejects, in the strongest possible terms, the Executive Order issued by the White House on May 1st, 2026, which tightens, to unprecedented and extreme levels, the economic, commercial, and financial blockade against Cuba.

It likewise condemns the decision adopted by the US Treasury Department on May 7, 2026, to include the Cuban entities GAESA and MoaNickel S.A. in the Specially Designated Nationals List, being this the first coercive measure resulting from the order signed on May 1st.

We are witnessing a ruthless act of economic aggression that multiplies the extraterritorial effects of the blockade, which includes the potential implementation of secondary sanctions against companies, banks, and foreign entities, even if their businesses in the United States are not related to Cuba. This measure will further hamper the operation of Cuba’s national economy, which has been already facing, since January 29, 2026, the nefarious effects of the oil blockade imposed by the US government as from that date, which has paralyzed fuel exports to the country.

The US, acting as the world’s gendarme and in open violation of International Law and the basic norms governing the free trade in goods and services, is explicitly, starkly, and straightforwardly attacking the sovereign faculty of all States which have or wish to have economic, commercial, and financial relations with Cuba. The highest US authorities, particularly the Secretary of State, try to impose on the international community, by resorting to blackmail and intimidation, their submission to and acceptance of the blockade.

No country is exempt from this threat of expansion of the genocide against the Cuban people, which is intended to force the isolation of Cuba from the international economic and financial scene.

We warn that this aggression against the Cuban economy and the Cuban people will only achieve the destructive effect it pursues if sovereign and independent nations allow themselves to be frightened or intimidated by the government of the United States. We know that the world will never meekly accept illegal rules; that it will never renounce sovereign equality nor leave its citizens, business people, corporations, and financial entities unprotected. The international community has historically opposed and condemned the genocide that is being committed against the people of Cuba by the government of the United States, which has already been in place for almost seven decades now.

We denounce the criminal nature of these aggressive measures aimed at subjecting the entire Cuban population to hunger and desperation, in an attempt to generate a social, economic, and political catastrophe at a national scale. We likewise reject the intention of the US government to fabricate a humanitarian crisis situation to justify far more dangerous actions, including military aggression against Cuba.

Cuba will continue to condemn the blockade at all international fora. We also call upon the international community to confront this onslaught, which is a dangerous escalation by the US in the interest of exerting its domination and controlling Cuba’s destiny, and a violation of the independence and sovereignty of all States.

Havana, May 7th, 2026

Taken from Cubaminrex