{"id":208892,"date":"2026-04-26T07:20:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T07:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/democrats-try-to-blunt-trump-in-cuba-before-its-too-late-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T07:20:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T07:20:26","slug":"democrats-try-to-blunt-trump-in-cuba-before-its-too-late-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/democrats-try-to-blunt-trump-in-cuba-before-its-too-late-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats try to blunt Trump in Cuba \u2014 before it's too late – USA Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 With the clock ticking down on the Trump administration’s ultimatum<\/a> to Cuba’s government, congressional Democrats are scrambling to stop President Donald Trump<\/a> from starting another military conflict.
Democratic Reps. Jonathan Jackson and Pramila Jayapal told their colleagues on April 21 during a closed-door meeting of the Congressional Progressive Caucus that they need to apply more pressure, the lawmakers told USA TODAY in interviews.
The group agreed in the room to back a resolution that would prohibit Trump from unilaterally launching<\/a> an invasion and a bill that would prohibit him from using federal funds<\/a> for an operation. They also threw their support behind legislation that would<\/a> repeal the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba.<\/a> The measures must receive final sign-off from the caucus, Jayapal said, but that\u2019s usually a routine process.
US imposed 2-week deadline during secret Cuba meeting<\/a>
Efforts by Democrats escalated after USA TODAY reported that senior State Department officials delivered an ultimatum to Cuba’s communist government during a secret meeting. U.S. diplomats told their Cuban counterparts that they had a small window to meet U.S. demands before circumstances irreversibly worsened.
Earlier in the week, USA TODAY exclusively reported<\/a> that the Pentagon was asked to draw up contingency plans in case Trump decides to launch a military operation.
Democrats realistically have few tools at their disposal to constrain Trump, with Republicans in control of both chambers of the legislative branch. They\u2019ve appealed to Trump in official letters and hammered the State Department for answers. After getting nowhere with their own government, Jayapal and Jackson made a rare trip to Havana in early April to speak directly with the Cuban president.<\/a>\u00a0
Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine is aiming to force a vote on a war powers resolution next week, with Trump using heated rhetoric like, “Cuba is next.”
\u201cI don’t think that we should just assume, oh well, he’s just bluffing. I think you have to take that seriously,\u201d Kaine told USA TODAY.\u00a0
Regime change? A military takeover? Trump’s thorny Cuba options<\/a>
Trump did not slap down the notion that he was considering military action on April 17 when reporters prodded him to comment.
\u201cI do anticipate the United States will have military action in Cuba, that these violent words precedes violent actions,\u201d Jackson of Illinois told USA TODAY in an interview. \u201cThere’s a pattern here that the administration has engaged in. When they say they’re ready to negotiate, that means they’re ready to invade.\u201d\u00a0
Democrats have tried and failed repeatedly to pass similar resolutions constraining Trump when it comes to Iran and are unlikely to win majority support now. Still, unfavorable views<\/a> of the conflict in the Middle East have left Democrats hopeful that there\u2019s room for dialogue with Cuba.
\u201cOne message the president should take away from how unpopular his attack on Iran has been, is that he should not attack another country and that definitely includes Cuba,\u201d Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said.
After their trip to Havana, the first known visit by U.S. lawmakers since 2024,<\/a> Jayapal and Jackson said they wanted to see what was happening firsthand. Cuba has been hit with rolling blackouts and internet outages amid an energy crisis that has worsened since the U.S. hit the island with an oil blockade following the arrest of former Venezuelan leader Nicola\u0301s Maduro.
Cuba is under heavy U.S. sanctions and a longstanding embargo that requires the communist government to make sweeping political and economic changes,<\/a> including the release of political prisoners, before the island can legally do business with American companies.
Jayapal, Jackson and 50 other Democrats in the House and Senate, including Warren and Kaine, sent a letter<\/a> to Trump on April 2 urging him to reverse course.
While in Cuba, Jayapal said she pushed for real negotiations, in the face of Trump\u2019s threats.
\u201cThere was a real concern about moving to military action and another failed regime change effort instead of pursuing a real country-to-country negotiation,\u201d Jayapal said in an interview after the trip.
The Trump administration says it won\u2019t let the island collapse into what the president considers to be a major national security threat if Cuba\u2019s leaders are unwilling or unable to act.\u00a0
A State Department official told USA TODAY this week that U.S. officials told their Cuban counterparts at the April 10 meeting that the nation\u2019s economy is in free fall and the island\u2019s ruling elites have a narrow window to make significant reforms that would help Cuba attract foreign investment.
A source with knowledge of the conversation said the Trump administration gave Cuba\u2019s government two weeks to release high-profile political prisoners as a goodwill gesture.
The Cuban government initially insisted<\/a> that no deadline was offered and the talks were nothing but respectful. Several days later, in an April 23 interview<\/a> with the Associated Press, the Cuban ambassador to the United Nations said Havana would not abide by American \u201cultimatums\u201d to release political prisoners and was \u201cready to fight back\u201d against U.S. military aggression if diplomacy fails.
A White House official said in response to a request for comment from USA TODAY that Cuba is a failing nation that will fall in a short period of time, at which point the U.S. would stand ready to help. The official did not comment directly on the pressure campaign from Democrats.
Democrats have been using privileged resolutions in the Senate to trigger war powers votes on Iran and plan to use the procedure to bypass Republican leaders and bring their Cuba measure directly to the floor.
They\u2019ve also leaned into letters<\/a> and public hearings as a way to hold the administration accountable.
Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro demanded to know at an April 16 hearing of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Latin America who on the U.S. side was involved in the ongoing talks.
\u201cThe president may launch a war against this country, and I want to know if there\u2019s a chance if we\u2019re going to avoid that or not,\u201d Castro told senior State Department official Michael Kozak.
Kozak would only say that Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are \u201csupervising\u201d the conversations<\/a>, which he said were aimed at fulfilling the political, social and economic conditions required to lift the trade embargo.
Many congressional Democrats want to lift the embargo even if a deal can\u2019t be reached.
Rep. Jim McGovern, the ranking Democrat on the House Rules Committee and the author of legislation to repeal the embargo, told USA TODAY the restrictions hurt average Cubans, not the hardliners in government.
\u201c<\/strong>I think our policy toward Cuba is a disaster,\u201d the Massachusetts Democrat said. \u201cI think it reflects badly on the United States. It makes us look like an imperialistic bully and makes us look insensitive. And it doesn’t serve our interests,\u201d he added.
Kaine said that if any other nation had an embargo on the U.S., like the one the U.S. has on Cuba, America would consider it an act of war. He said he supports the normalization of relations and closer economic ties between the two countries as a way to free the Cuban people from oppression.\u00a0
\u201cIt is more likely to than ordering our sons and daughters into unnecessary wars,\u201d Kaine said.<\/p>\n

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WASHINGTON \u2014 With the clock ticking down on the Trump administration’s ultimatum to Cuba’s government, congressional Democrats are scrambling to stop President Donald Trump from starting another military conflict.Democratic Reps. Jonathan Jackson and Pramila Jayapal told their colleagues on April 21 during a closed-door meeting of the Congressional Progressive Caucus that they need to apply […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":208893,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-208892","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}