Could a Democratic Congress Stop Trump's Blockade on Cuba?
November 4, 2026
By Blake Burdge
Democrats flipped both chambers of Congress on Tuesday, delivering a stunning rebuke to Donald Trump and opening the possibility for a showdown over his administration's economic war on Cuba.
With their new majorities and control over congressional committees, Democrats could pursue legislation ending Trump's oil blockade, prohibit funding for unauthorized military operations and advance measures to ease or repeal economic sanctions.
The election results also cast doubt on the conventional wisdom about the political risks of opposing the embargo, including in Florida, where Cuba hardliners have long wielded enormous influence.
Cracks in Florida's Cuba Orthodoxy
Democrats have long been reluctant to challenge Washington’s hard-line Cuba policy, fearing they would be branded soft on communism and lose support among Cuban-American voters.
But this year, many Democratic candidates abandoned that political calculation, even in Florida.
In the Florida senate race, Republican incumbent Ashley Moody narrowly defeated state representative Angie Nixon, a democratic socialist who openly opposed the Trump administration’s economic blockade on Cuba.
Nixon accused the Trump administration of imposing “collective punishment that hurts Cuban families,” called for easing restrictions on fuel, food and medical equipment, and advocated restoring Obama-era engagement with the island.
Nixon lost by roughly three percentage points, a dramatic improvement over the 16-point margin by which Marco Rubio defeated his Democratic challenger for the same seat in 2022.
“That tells you the old assumption that opposing the embargo is disqualifying in Florida no longer holds,” said Andrea Fernández Aponte, who leads Cuba advocacy at the Latin America Working Group (LAWG).
In Florida's 26th Congressional District, Democrat Nicole Locklin seems to have come within a hair of pulling off a surprising upset of Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL), a 23-year incumbent and the longest serving Cuban-American hardliner. With nearly all votes counted, Locklin trails by less than one percentage point, 49.1% to 49.87%.
Díaz-Balart chairs the House subcommittee overseeing State Department funding, a position he has used to help direct millions of dollars toward programs aimed at bringing about regime change in Cuba.
While Locklin has supported targeted sanctions against Cuban officials, she has also called for loosening restrictions and expanding access to food, medicine and fuel.
In a battle of Cuban Americans in the adjacent 27th Congressional District, Democrat Eliott Rodríguez, appears to have lost a bid to unseat incumbent Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL), another leading advocate of Trump's maximum-pressure sanctions on Cuba. Rodríguez was trailing by less than half a percentage point (50.23% to 49.77%). Just two years ago, Salazar won the seat by more than 20 points.
In February, Salazar acknowledged that Cuban families were going hungry as a result of U.S. policy, but likened their suffering to the pain of childbirth.
In contrast, Rodríguez, who still has family in Cuba, has sharply criticized the administration’s Cuba policy.
"I do not support starving people to death in Cuba," Rodríguez told Miami-based public radio station WLRN in October.
Rodríguez also said he would support a War Powers Resolution challenging Trump's authority to conduct military operations against Cuba without congressional approval.
"I'm not going to give Donald Trump a pass on doing whatever he feels like doing in Cuba," he told Politico.
Trump's ramped-up economic war on the island, which is fueling a humanitarian crisis without producing any tangible benefit to the United States, may have prompted some Democrats to reconsider their approach to Cuba.
“The hope is that finally, after Trump and Rubio have pushed this to such an extreme place, Democrats will say, 'We can't justify this anymore,'” said Erik Sperling, executive director of Just Foreign Policy, a Washington-based advocacy group that opposes U.S. military intervention and economic sanctions.
Progressives Push Back on Cuba
Beyond Florida, a new generation of progressive Democrats has been increasingly vocal in their opposition to hard-line policies toward Cuba.
In August, New York Democrats Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez joined Chris Rabb of Pennsylvania and Adam Hamawy of New Jersey at the Panamerican Congress in Uruguay, where progressive leaders called for an immediate end to the U.S. blockade on Cuba.
All four won their congressional races Tuesday.
Sperling said young voters increasingly see Cuba policy as a measure of a politician’s progressive credentials.
“There’s a lot of young people that see this issue as a sign of whether a member of Congress is truly a human rights and progressive advocate,” he said.
Growing Opposition in Congress
Even before these elections, a growing number of Democratic lawmakers had been speaking out against the Trump administration’s Cuba policy.
In an April letter to Trump, 52 Democratic legislators accused the administration of “engineering an accelerated energy collapse” in Cuba, warning that its policies had shifted responsibility for the island's suffering “squarely onto the United States.”
That same month, Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Jonathan Jackson (D-IL) traveled to Cuba to witness the humanitarian consequences of the oil blockade.
After visiting a Havana maternity hospital where power outages threatened the lives of premature babies dependent on incubators and other life-saving equipment, Jayapal condemned the blockade's devastating impact on civilian infrastructure.
“What we're doing feels like bombing energy infrastructure,” she told Belly of the Beast journalist Liz Oliva Fernández. Jackson called the blockade “an act of war” and urged Washington to end it.
The visit also prompted a confrontation with the State Department after the lawmakers were denied a meeting with the top U.S. diplomat in Havana. Joined by Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) and Joaquin Castro (D-TX), they accused the administration of obstructing congressional oversight.
In May, Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL) led 31 members of Congress in demanding that Trump lift the oil blockade, abandon plans for military intervention and end the detention of migrants at the Guantanamo Bay naval base.
Ramirez went to Cuba in July alongside Reps. Mark Pocan (D-WI), Maxine Dexter (D-OR) and Teresa Leger Fernández (D-NM). Belly of the Beast had exclusive access to the lawmakers' visit to a Havana hospital.
In September, Ramirez and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) organized an informal congressional hearing where witnesses testified about the humanitarian consequences and alleged illegality of the blockade.
Later that month, 45 organizations urged House Democratic leadership to force a vote on legislation challenging unauthorized military action against Cuba.
What a Democratic Majority Could Do
With majorities in both chambers, Democrats will control congressional committees, giving them the power to hold hearings, subpoena administration officials and investigate the humanitarian consequences of Trump's policies. Such investigations could expose abuses, force Trump officials to defend their decisions publicly and build pressure for policy changes.
But Democratic control of Congress does not guarantee a break with Washington’s longstanding hostility toward Cuba, which has often had bipartisan support.
During Biden's first two years, Democrats held both the House and Senate, yet his administration largely embraced the hard-line approach installed by Trump during his first term, including Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism (there is no credible evidence that Cuba sponsors terrorism).
This time, however, Democrats will enter Congress with legislation already in the works to challenge Trump's oil blockade and growing momentum within their ranks to confront his administration's Cuba policy.
In April, the Senate voted 51–47 to block a War Powers Resolution that could have forced Trump to end military enforcement of the oil blockade. The measure argued that using the Coast Guard and other armed forces to stop fuel shipments constituted hostilities requiring congressional authorization.
“If anyone were doing to the United States what we are doing to Cuba, we would definitely consider it an act of war,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said before the vote.
Kaine subsequently introduced another War Powers Resolution, S.J.Res. 193, with Sens. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), seeking to end unauthorized U.S. military operations against Cuba.
In the House, Reps. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) and Gregory Meeks (D-NY) introduced H.Con.Res. 106, similarly seeking to end military involvement in hostilities against Cuba without congressional authorization.
Sperling, whose organization backed the House measure, has urged lawmakers to hold a vote before the outgoing Congress ends in January. A strong showing, he argued, could build momentum for the new Democratic majority.
These resolutions would not affect the six-decades-old economic embargo, which was codified into law with the 1996 Helms-Burton Act.
Advocates for a change in Cuba policy are instead calling on Democrats to pursue the more tangible goal of ending Trump’s oil blockade.
“The first priority must be to stop any potential military action against Cuba, including an end to the fuel embargo which is being militarily enforced,” Suzanne Adely, president of the National Lawyers Guild, told Belly of the Beast.
Democrats could also use their power over military spending to constrain Trump’s bellicose policy toward Cuba.
In June, Velázquez and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) urged the House Armed Services Committee to include a provision in the annual defense bill prohibiting funding for military operations against Cuba without congressional authorization. The Republican-led committee advanced the bill without the provision.
Fernández Aponte said Democrats could go further, restricting funds for Coast Guard vessels and other military assets enforcing the oil blockade.
How Far Can Democrats Go?
In February, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) introduced the United States-Cuba Trade Act, which would dismantle much of the legal framework underpinning the blockade, including repealing Helms-Burton and the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act.
The bill has drawn support from progressive Democrats, including Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Delia Ramirez (D-IL), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Greg Casar (D-TX) and Velázquez.
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) had introduced similar legislation in the Senate the previous year.
Even with their congressional majorities, Democrats will face an uphill battle trying to pass new laws on Cuba policy or repeal old ones like Helms-Burton. They would need 60 votes to overcome a Senate filibuster. Even then, they would likely face a presidential veto that could only be overridden by a two-thirds majority in both chambers.
“Full repeal [of Helms-Burton] is a long-term fight,” said Fernández Aponte. “In the near term, there is a real opening to roll back the most damaging measures, starting with the oil blockade and the restrictions on remittances and travel.”
But Democratic Party establishment figures still wedded to the old political playbook on Cuba could stand in the way of any change to Cuba policy.
“The biggest obstacle is Florida politics,” said Fernández Aponte. “Many Democratic leaders still see Cuba as a losing issue with Cuban-American voters, so they avoid it.”
Electoral considerations aren't the only factor. Some Democratic lawmakers also have longstanding ties to wealthy Cuban-American donors and pro-embargo political organizations.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), who won reelection Tuesday, has received campaign contributions from the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC for two decades. She and fellow Florida Democrat Rep. Jared Moskowitz, who also won reelection, opposed Biden’s decision to remove Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list just before he left office in January 2025.
Adely questioned whether Democrats would reverse course on Cuba without sustained public pressure.
“The political reality is that the Dems have their history of supporting imperialist policies, so the movement cannot just leave it to them," she said. "Whatever the avenue, the movement must see this as the moment to escalate political pressure.