US Democratic lawmakers visit Cuba and urge Trump to lower tensions

HAVANA: Two Democratic members of the US House of Representatives travelled to Cuba last week and called on President Donald Trump to reduce tensions, saying people on the island were enduring hardship because of Washington’s measures.

According to the lawmakers, Pramila Jayapal and Jonathan Jackson visited Cuba to assess conditions on the ground after Trump imposed what they described as a de facto oil blockade aimed at pressuring the communist-led government. They said they wanted to “see the suffering that is happening on the ground” as a result of what they called “an illegal blockade of energy supplies”.

The visit was the first by a US congressional delegation to Cuba this year and came amid heightened strain in the long-troubled relationship between the two countries. The Trump administration has halted remittances to Cuba, warned of tariffs on countries supplying oil to the island and placed Cuba on a US list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Jackson told reporters at a privately owned hostel near Havana’s waterfront that, “This is the most sanctioned part of Planet Earth right now, just 90 miles off our shores,” and added, “Let’s bring the rhetoric down. People are suffering. And they are suffering for no good reason.”

The lawmakers said their five-day visit, which concluded on Sunday, included meetings with President Miguel Diaz-Canel, Cuban legislators and senior officials at the foreign ministry. They said both sides had acknowledged the start of contacts, although little information about those exchanges had been disclosed publicly.

Jayapal said, “There has been dialogue — the beginnings of dialogue,” adding that, “I don’t think it’s reached the state of negotiation that we were told. But I think there is a desire to ensure that there is a real negotiation … about what needs to happen in order for the situation to change.”

Hospital visits and sanctions

The two lawmakers said they were distressed by what they saw during visits to an oncology unit and a maternity ward in Havana hospitals. They said the facilities had been in decline for decades and had been hit especially hard by Trump’s fuel restrictions.

Trump recently said he expected to have the “honour” of “taking Cuba in some form” and that “I can do anything I want” with the neighbouring country. Despite those remarks, he did not move to block a Russian tanker that delivered 700,000 barrels of crude oil to Cuba last week.

Jackson said, “President Trump saw in his heart to let the Russian ship come in; whatever changed his heart, we are grateful for.”

Calls for negotiations

The lawmakers also pointed to what they described as recent signs of goodwill from Cuba. They noted that Cuba had invited exiles to invest in businesses on the island, asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to examine an illegal sea incursion off the country’s north coast that left five people dead, and announced plans to pardon more than 2,000 prisoners.

Jayapal said, “There are a number of things that indicate that the moment is here for us to have a real negotiation between our two countries and to reverse failed US policy of decades, a Cold War era remnant, that no longer serves the American people or the Cuban people.” She added that Democrats would keep backing legislation aimed at ensuring the United States does not go to war with Cuba and would continue pressing for the lifting of sanctions she said had failed.

Jackson said the pair believed that without compromise, the situation would worsen. “We can either help (the Cuban) people stay at home and live a healthy normal life, or there’s going to be a huge migration coming towards the United States,” he said, adding, “People will not simply stay here, suffer and die.”