“Cuban blood stains Marco Rubio's hands.”

On 25 February, a Florida-registered speedboat entered Cuban territorial waters without authorization, with passengers in camouflage who then opened fire on a Cuban patrol.

This attack is the predictable result of a long campaign to strangle Cuba into submission. The US blockade — tightened and openly championed by Donald Trump as a tool of economic coercion — was designed to destroy the island’s economy and force political rupture in service of US interests.

At the center of this offensive stands Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose political career has been built on maximal confrontation with Cuba. He has championed the harshest sanctions, derided diplomacy, and framed the island’s government as illegitimate.

Yesterday’s confrontation in Cuba’s territorial waters is a stark illustration that Rubio’s campaign of permanent escalation breeds actors willing to translate his ambitions for regime change into violent action: A gang of criminals organized on U.S. soil, purchased weapons in U.S. markets, stole a vessel from a Florida port, and set sail to carry out violence against a sovereign nation.

From the Cabinet of the Progressive International, we join the call for transparency from the Trump administration, which must be pushed to account for how such an armed militia organized and deployed from their territory without interception.

Cuba’s future belongs to the Cuban people alone. The US blockade is an assault on their sacred right to self-determination, as it is an incitement to terror.

We must defeat the blockade — and we can. From the Cabinet, we call on progressive forces across the world to unite in support of the Cuban people: to break the siege, to deliver critical supplies, and make our solidarity with Cuba more than a slogan.