de facto oil blockade<\/a> in a bid to bring Cuba\u2019s communist-run government to its knees.<\/p>\nCongressional representatives Pramila Jayapal, a leading member of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and Jonathan Jackson, a Democrat with a long interest in Cuba, said they had come to \u201csee the suffering that is happening on the ground\u201d as a result of Trump\u2019s fuel embargo, which they called \u201can illegal blockade of energy supplies\u201d.<\/p>\n
The lawmakers\u2019 visit comes at a time of unprecedented tension in the decades-long frosty relationship between the US and Cuba. The Trump administration has closed the tap on remittances to Cuba, threatened to slap tariffs on countries that provide oil to the island and placed it on a list of nations that sponsor terrorism.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the most sanctioned part of Planet Earth right now, just 90 miles off our shores,\u201d Jackson told a small group of reporters at a privately-owned hostel near Havana\u2019s waterfront.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s bring the rhetoric down. People are suffering. And they are suffering for no good reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawmakers said their five-day trip, which ended on Sunday, included meetings with President Miguel Diaz-Canel, Cuban lawmakers and top officials at Cuba\u2019s foreign ministry.<\/p>\n
Both nations have acknowledged they have begun talking, though few details of those discussions have been made public.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been dialogue \u2014 the beginnings of dialogue,\u201d Jayapal said following meetings with top Cuban officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s reached the state of negotiation that we were told. But I think there is a desire to ensure that there is a real negotiation \u2026 about what needs to happen in order for the situation to change.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawmakers said they were saddened after visiting an oncology unit and a maternity ward in Havana hospitals that have been deteriorating for decades but have been particularly hard hit by Trump\u2019s fuel blockade.<\/p>\n
Tough Talk<\/strong><\/p>\nTrump recently said he expected to have the \u201chonour\u201d of \u201ctaking Cuba in some form\u201d and that \u201cI can do anything I want\u201d with the neighbouring country.<\/p>\n
Despite such threats, Trump did not take action to stop a Russian tanker that last week delivered 700,000 barrels of desperately needed crude oil to Cuba.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump saw in his heart to let the Russian ship come in; whatever changed his heart, we are grateful for,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n
The Democratic lawmakers also praised Cuba for recent gestures of apparent goodwill.<\/p>\n
Cuba last month invited exiles to invest in businesses on the island, invited the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate an illegal incursion by sea that left five dead off Cuba\u2019s north coast and most recently, said it would pardon upwards of 2,000 prisoners.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere 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,\u201d Jayapal said.<\/p>\n
She said Democrats would continue to push for bills that ensure the US does not go to war with Cuba, and would push to lift sanctions she said were ineffective.<\/p>\n
Jackson said the duo believed anything short of compromise would lead only to bigger problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can either help (the Cuban) people stay at home and live a healthy normal life, or there\u2019s going to be a huge migration coming towards the United States,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople will not simply stay here, suffer and die.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n
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