Rep. Pramila Jayapal is catching fire after openly admitting she’s been talking with foreign officials about ways to keep oil flowing into communist Cuba — even as President Donald Trump ramps up a pressure campaign designed to choke off the island regime’s energy supply.
The far-left Washington Democrat made the eyebrow-raising remarks during a Monday event after returning from a trip to Cuba, where she painted the collapsing socialist state as the victim — not the architects of its own decades-long misery.
“In January, Trump issued an executive order threatening tariffs on any countries supplying fuel to Cuba,” Jayapal said. “Oil shipments from Venezuela — that’s where Cuba had been getting its oil — were halted after the U.S. operations to kidnap Nicolás Maduro.”
That “kidnap” line alone sounded like it came straight from Havana state TV.
Jayapal continued by lamenting that only one Russian oil tanker had reached Cuba since January, saying the shipment would cover “10 to 14 days” of the island’s energy needs.
“Russia has said they’re going to send another tanker,” she said. “I was in conversations with the ambassadors from Mexico and some other places, and I know other countries in Latin America are trying to figure out how to get oil there.”
In other words: while the White House tries to economically isolate Cuba’s communist regime, one Democrat appears perfectly comfortable brainstorming workarounds with foreign governments.
Trump’s January executive order declared a national emergency related to Cuba and authorized tariffs against countries supplying oil to the regime. The administration says the measures are aimed at countering Havana’s ties to hostile actors and cutting off support for the island’s authoritarian government.
Then last week, Trump widened the crackdown again, signing another executive order targeting foreign banks, businesses and affiliates doing business with Cuba’s government or security apparatus.
Jayapal, naturally, compared the sanctions to warfare. “I have called these sanctions an economic bombing of the infrastructure of Cuba,” she said. “It is illegal. It is against the war to bomb the infrastructure of any country. That is against international law. This is essentially doing the same thing.”
That’s a remarkable defense of a regime that has spent decades jailing dissidents, crushing free speech and driving generations of Cubans into poverty and exile.
Cuba’s economy is currently in freefall, with rolling blackouts, fuel shortages and food scarcity hammering the island. Venezuelan oil shipments dried up after the fall of Nicolás Maduro, leaving Havana scrambling for help from Russia, Mexico and anyone else willing to risk Trump’s sanctions regime.
The comments immediately triggered backlash online, with critics accusing Jayapal of undermining U.S. foreign policy and flirting with violations of the Logan Act, the rarely enforced law barring unauthorized negotiations with foreign governments.
Florida Sen. Rick Scott blasted the remarks as “DISTURBING,” accusing Democrats of “aiding a communist adversary.”
Meanwhile, Trump has made it crystal clear he’s done playing nice with Havana. Back in March, when asked whether he intended to “free” Cuba or “take” it, Trump shrugged: “Whether I free it, take it. I think I can do anything I want with it, you want to know the truth. They are a very weakened nation.” That line sent the foreign policy establishment into cardiac arrest — but it also underscored the administration’s strategy: maximum pressure, no apologies.
