GEORGETOWN, GUYANA – May 27, 2026 — The Caribbean Community’s top foreign affairs body has issued a scathing rebuke of long-running coercive economic and financial measures targeting Cuba, issuing a stark warning that escalating external pressure and looming threats of military action threaten to destabilize the entire Caribbean region.
The CARICOM Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR), the regional bloc’s lead body coordinating foreign policy and community cooperation, released a formal declaration Wednesday outlining deep alarm over the intensifying embargo and sanctions regime that has strangled Cuba’s economy for more than 60 years. In the statement, the council emphasized that the mounting economic hardship gripping the island is not limited to Cuban citizens — it is also directly harming hundreds of CARICOM nationals who live and study in Cuba, whose well-being the bloc counts as a core priority.
Decades of unilateral trade and economic restrictions have already inflicted persistent damage to Cuban livelihoods, the council noted, and the recent tightening of financial and commercial measures has only compounded this decades-long crisis. Most critically, COFCOR issued an unqualified defense of Cuba’s sovereign right to secure energy resources, explicitly condemning external interference with fuel shipments bound for the island. The body confirmed that consistent disruptions to energy access have already pushed Cuba into a serious humanitarian emergency, with widespread impacts on access to basic services for the civilian population.
The declaration also addressed growing geopolitical tension in the region, following a series of developments that have raised fears of direct military conflict. Recent weeks have seen the United States issue a controversial indictment of former Cuban President Raúl Castro, alongside public reports of a U.S. military buildup in Caribbean waters. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has framed Cuba as a security threat due to its diplomatic and economic ties to Russia and China, admitting that while the U.S. “prefers” diplomatic action, the probability of a peaceful resolution is “not high.”
In response, COFCOR reaffirmed its long-standing commitment to preserving the entire Caribbean basin as a formal Zone of Peace, saying the bloc is deeply alarmed by open suggestions of military aggression against Cuba. Any military strike or intervention on the island, the council warned, would trigger widespread unnecessary human suffering, inflict crippling economic damage across the region, and shatter the fragile security framework that has kept the Caribbean stable for decades.
Grounding its position in international law and consistent resolutions supported by the overwhelming majority of United Nations member states year after year, COFCOR pushed back against claims that Cuba constitutes a global security threat. The council stressed that Cuba is a peaceful, cooperative member of the international community that poses no risk to any sovereign nation. It further argued that the ongoing use of unilateral coercive measures against the island amounts to an unjustifiable violation of fundamental human rights, core principles of free global trade, and the basic norms that govern relations between independent states.
In a note of division within the bloc, the declaration confirmed that two CARICOM member states — Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago — have reserved their official positions on the statement, declining to endorse the full text. The full declaration was released from the CARICOM Secretariat headquarters in Greater Georgetown, Guyana.