Actors Mark Ruffalo and Kal Penn, actress Susan Sarandon, writer Alice Walker, and 22 New York City (NYC) Council members are among a group of artists, elected officials, public figures, and organizations that signed the letter.

“Massive famine and human suffering in Cuba are the target of Trump’s latest ’emergency’ Executive Order, which prevents Cuba, an island nation, from importing oil or any energy source necessary for its survival,” stated the letter, entitled “A Call to Conscience.”

The text, published on The People’s Forum’s X profile, stated that “this is a cynical and crude ploy to distract public opinion from internal problems that are generating massive public dissent and, as we have seen with Venezuela, a precursor to an illegal military attack.”

The document affirmed: “We, along with millions of people in the United States and around the world, reject this inhumane act against the Cuban people.”

The letter underscored, “This is not a national security policy; it is a deliberate act of economic warfare to stifle an entire population.”

The statement remembered that US President Barack Obama (2009-2017) initiated a significant effort to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba.

But Trump, it said, has reversed the course set by the Obama administration. His January 29 Executive Order designates Cuba as an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States.

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