On March 30, 2026, reports indicated that the US would allow a Russian oil tanker carrying 730,000 barrels of crude oil to dock in Cuba, delivering much-needed fuel to an island that had faced an effective US oil blockade since January 29, 2026. The arrival underscored the severity of Cuba’s energy crisis and the extent to which access to fuel had become a geopolitical battleground in the Caribbean. The crisis was produced by a deliberate escalation of US economic coercion, using both sanctions and tariffs. As tools of economic warfare, tariffs operate as forms of state crime that produce systemic harm and human suffering in Cuba and across the region.

Framing economic warfare as state crime foregrounds its transnational and historical dimensions. Within this framework, tariffs and sanctions function as legally sanctioned tools of imperial statecraft and state-organized harm. From their colonial origins to their neoliberal reinvention and contemporary resurgence, tariff regimes have reinforced global hierarchies, facilitated accumulation, and produced structural violence. Contemporary US economic warfare against Cuba now marks a critical transformation in US economic statecraft: emergency powers expand tariff and sanction authority to penalize third states for lawful trade, undermining international legal norms while generating severe humanitarian consequences. Grounded in a long history of US interventionism in the region, this deliberate economic coercion constitutes an instance of imperial state crime.

The blockade of Cuba

The blockade originated with President Donald J. Trump’s January 29, 2026, executive order, “Addressing Threats to the United States by the Government of Cuba.” The executive order frames Cuba as an “unusual and extraordinary threat” aligned with Russia, China, Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah. Invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (NEA), and Section 301 of Title 3 of the US Code, the order declared a national emergency and authorized sweeping tariffs against any country that directly or indirectly provides oil to Cuba. In effect, the order established a proxy fuel blockade. Rather than directly interdicting shipments, it threatened third countries with punitive duties, making continued energy trade with Cuba economically and politically costly.

Oil, defined broadly to include crude and petroleum products, thus becomes the central object of coercion. Once the Secretary of Commerce determines that a country supplies oil to Cuba, the administration may impose additional ad valorem duties on that country’s exports to the US. Access to the US market is thereby conditioned on compliance with Washington’s sanctions regime, transforming tariffs into instruments of sanctions enforcement and extending US jurisdiction into global energy markets. This represents a qualitative shift in economic statecraft: trade policy is reconfigured as a mechanism of extraterritorial coercion embedded within a broader structure of imperial governance.

The weaponization of energy

The consequences have been immediate and severe. Since the end of the Cold War, Cuba has relied heavily on oil from Venezuela and Mexico. Following the US extra-judicial capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026, and the disruption of Venezuelan oil exports, shipments to Cuba declined sharply. Simultaneously, the Trump administration signaled that countries continuing to supply fuel could face tariffs, effectively deterring Mexico and other suppliers. The result was a sudden contraction in Cuba’s fuel supply, estimated at a reduction of approximately 90%.

The humanitarian consequences of the fuel blockade have been immediate and far-reaching. Reports indicate that an estimated 11,000 children are awaiting surgery, while more than 96,000 people in Cuba require medical procedures that hospitals have struggled to provide due to electricity shortages and lack of supplies. Blackouts have also forced schools, government offices, and public institutions to close. Airlines have canceled flights due to insufficient jet fuel, disrupting tourism and mobility. Hospitals, water systems, refrigeration, food distribution networks, and transportation infrastructures all rely on petroleum-based electricity generation.

On February 12, 2026, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the executive order as “a serious violation of international law and a grave threat to a democratic and equitable international order.” UN human rights experts further characterized the measure as “an extreme form of unilateral economic coercion with extraterritorial effects,” warning that it compels sovereign states to alter lawful commercial relations under threat of punitive trade measures. They underscored that, absent UN Security Council authorization, the order lacks legitimacy under the principle of collective security and is incompatible with international law. Moreover, they emphasized that there is no recognized right under international law for one state to penalize third states for engaging in lawful trade, and that restricting fuel imports in an already fragile context risks constituting collective punishment of civilians.

Economic warfare

This escalation must be understood within a broader regional strategy. The Trump administration has articulated a new hemispheric doctrine or the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, asserting unilateral authority over Latin America and the Caribbean. This doctrine has been accompanied by intensified coercive practices, including more than 20 lethal boat strikes, killing over 80 people, actions described by the United Nations and human rights organizations as extrajudicial executions. Within this context, the blockade of Cuba is not an isolated measure but part of a wider project of regional restructuring and domination. President Trump himself has framed the policy in explicitly geopolitical terms, stating that he would have “the honor of taking Cuba” and signaling that President Miguel Díaz-Canel should resign. These statements clarify the underlying logic of the blockade: regime change through economic coercion, enacted through the weaponization of energy and the normalization of economic warfare as a modality of state power.

In this sense, the January 29 executive order marks a significant shift in the evolution of sanctions regimes. For decades, the US has relied on financial sanctions, export controls, and diplomatic pressure to isolate targeted states. A 2025 study  published in The Lancet Global Health suggests that US economic sanctions contribute to approximately 564,000 deaths annually worldwide.

The January 29 order introduces a hybrid model in which tariffs function as instruments of sanctions enforcement, extending coercive pressure through global supply chains and restructuring trade relations among sovereign states through unilateral threats backed by US economic power.

This shift reflects a broader transformation in US economic statecraft. Under President Trump, tariffs have reemerged as overt tools of economic warfare. During his first administration, tariffs on steel, aluminum, and hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese goods were justified on national security grounds. In his second administration, tariffs have been deployed more explicitly as instruments of coercion, including threats against countries purchasing Venezuelan oil and pressure on other disputes in Latin America. Trump has framed “tariffs as punishment” as a preferable to traditional sanctions, particularly where financial measures risk encouraging de-dollarization.

Emergency powers

This strategy relies heavily on the expansive use of emergency powers. The administration has drawn on the IEEPA, Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, and Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose tariffs and sanctions with minimal congressional oversight. Enacted in 1977, IEEPA authorizes the president to regulate commerce during national emergencies that threaten US security, economy, or foreign policy. Since its enactment, IEEPA has been used to declare national emergencies 69 times, 39 of which remain active, addressing broad issues such as weapons proliferation and terrorism. The legality of many such declarations is contested, particularly where the threats invoked fail to meet the statutory threshold of being “unusual and extraordinary.”

The use of emergency powers to impose tariffs has historical precedent. Christopher Casey traces this practice to President Nixon’s 1971 invocation of the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) to impose a 10% import surcharge. Although framed as a temporary measure to stabilize the dollar, the policy functioned as economic leverage to pressure Japan and West Germany into revaluing their currencies. Congress later preserved key elements of TWEA within IEEPA, enabling future expansions of executive authority. Similarly, Sections 232 and 301 have justified tariffs under national security and trade enforcement claims.

The elasticity of “emergency,” “national security,” and “economic threat” allows the executive to construct crises and deploy coercive legal measures with significant social consequences. As Elizabeth Goitein notes, the NEA activates more than 150 statutory powers upon a presidential declaration. Yet IEEPA neither mentions tariffs nor provides a legislative basis for such use. At the international level, these policies undermine the multilateral trade order, violating principles of non-discrimination and reciprocity under GATT and the WTO, while contributing to the paralysis of global enforcement mechanisms.

On February 20, 2026, the US Supreme Court ruled in  Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that IEEPA cannot be used to impose tariffs. Although the decision limits tariff-based secondary sanctions and weakens the legal basis of the January 29 order targeting Cuba, it leaves intact tariffs under Sections 232 and 301 and does not dismantle the broader architecture of US economic coercion.

The US Embargo to Cuba as an act of aggression

The US has maintained a near-total trade embargo on Cuba since 1962, costing the island an estimated $130 billion in lost revenue. As one of the longest-standing and most restrictive regimes of economic coercion, US sanctions have significantly undermined Cuba’s economic development by restricting access to goods, services, financial resources, and international markets. Elsewhere, I have argued that this form of collective punishment constitutes a manifestation of imperial state crime.

That is from the outset, US economic warfare was geostrategic, responding to the Cuban Revolution’s challenge to the US hegemony in the Western Hemisphere. The embargo blocked Cuba’s access to global markets and disrupted its trade with third countries and its participation in international financial systems. It began with a trade ban imposed in October 1960 by the Eisenhower administration following Cuba’s nationalization of oil refineries and agrarian reforms. In February 1962, President Kennedy formalized the embargo through Executive Order 3447 under the TWEA, which, alongside the Cuban Assets Control Regulations of 1963, imposed sweeping restrictions on trade, travel, and financial transactions designed to destabilize the Cuban government.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Cuba partially mitigated the effects of the embargo through trade with the Soviet Union, but the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1991 triggered a severe economic crisis, reducing trade by 75–80 percent. Subsequent US policies deepened these constraints. The Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 (Torricelli Act) prohibited foreign subsidiaries of US companies from trading with Cuba, contradicting international commercial law, which defines corporate nationality by place of incorporation rather than ownership. It also barred ships docking in Cuba from entering US ports and authorized the withholding of aid from countries assisting Cuba. The 1996 Helms-Burton Act further entrenched the embargo into law, extending US jurisdiction extraterritorially by allowing lawsuits against foreign companies operating on nationalized property.

The embargo has had lasting structural effects. Restrictions on US dollar transactions increase exchange costs and deter foreign banks from engaging with Cuban institutions due to the risk of secondary sanctions. These financial restrictions have also constrained key sectors such as tourism, limiting investment and development. While the Obama administration briefly eased some restrictions, these changes were largely reversed under President Trump, who intensified the economic warfare by reinstating Cuba on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list and activating Title III of the Helms-Burton Act. The Trump administration also restricted remittances by blocking FINCIMEX and forcing Western Union to halt operations, cutting off a vital source of income for many Cuban households. These policies resulted in over-compliance by financial institutions and impeded even humanitarian transactions, including access to food, medicine, and essential goods.

Over time, the cumulative effects of the embargo have deepened Cuba’s economic and social crises. Economic warfare and the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to prolonged economic decline, the migration of more than 4% of the population, and the collapse of the island’s electrical system, resulting in widespread blackouts since 2024.

The international community has repeatedly rejected the legitimacy of the US embargo. On October 29, 2025, the UN General Assembly condemned US sanctions on Cuba, with 165 member states supporting calls to end punitive legislation such as the Helms-Burton Act, which many countries argue violates international law and the UN Charter.

Targeting energy, reshaping order

The January 29 executive order intensifies this historical trajectory. By directly targeting oil, it moves beyond general economic restrictions to strike at the foundational infrastructure of Cuban society. Fuel is indispensable for electricity generation, water purification, hospital operations, transportation, and food production; restricting access to it produces systemic effects across the entire economy.

More broadly, the order reflects the normalization of economic warfare through emergency powers. IEEPA and the NEA were designed as extraordinary authorities, yet they have become routine instruments for reshaping global economic relations.

For Cuba, the immediate result is a manufactured oil crisis. For the international legal order, the consequence is the erosion of multilateral norms and the expansion of extraterritorial coercion. Economic warfare is often presented as targeted and precise, but when they disrupt energy systems, their effects are widespread and indiscriminate. Fuel becomes leverage. Tariffs become punishment. And an already vulnerable population is pushed further into crisis.