The economic, financial and commercial blockade imposed by the United States the government on Cuba has caused losses that exceed 150.41 billion dollars in accumulated damages. If the depreciation of the dollar against gold is taken into account, the figure reaches one trillion dollars.
The member of the Political Bureau of the Party and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla revealed while speaking at the Second Extraordinary Session of the National Assembly of People’s Power (ANPP in Spanish), in which he reviewed the impact of this hostile policy against the island during its more than six decades in force.
He spoke of the different stages of the tightening of the blockade, pointing out that moments such as the passing of the Torricelli Act, the Helms-Burton Act, the Bush Plan and the measures adopted by the government of Donald Trump which have exerted maximum pressure and generated considerable damage to the national economy and have had a significant impact on the quality of life of the Cuban people.
The first stage of the blockade lasted until the 1990s, and it was characterized, in the first pace, because it begins almost at the same time as the triumph of the Revolution, he explained.
“The first blockade-like measures appeared in 1959, after the general reforms. A few years later, the Mallory Memorandum was made official, which consisted of depressing unreal nominal wages, causing hunger, desperation and suffering, which overtime will cause the overthrow of the Government.” However, the minister added, “they recognized that the majority of the population supported the Revolution.”
The blockade continued to intensify, he added, but its impact was difficult because Cuba maintained economic relations with the Soviet Union and with the countries of the socialist bloc. In addition, its extraterritorial scope was smaller.
In the early 1990s, the Torricelli Act cut ties, making it difficult to make purchases, especially food and medicines purchases, with subsidiary companies that belong to U.S. parent companies and were are registered in Europe. “It is a very aggressive step against third countries and against Cuba’s economic relations in other latitudes,” he pointed out.
The Foreign Minister recalled that, at that time, the vote on the resolution against the U.S. blockade of Cuba began in the United Nations General Assembly. In the first voting in 1992, it reached little more than 50 votes, which happen at the same time the Soviet Union and the so-called European socialism were falling apart.
Later on, Rodríguez Parrilla pointed out, the Helms-Burton Act emerged in its worst variant as it established the codification of the blockade: in the first place, because of its extraterritorial nature and, secondly, it established the condition that the blockade would not be lifted until the US properties that controlled the country’s economy, and which had been nationalized with the revolutionary triumph, were “returned.”
On the other hand, he mentioned, the Bush Plan established in the year 2000 elements of intensification of the blockade.
CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF THE BLOCKADE
From the year 2000 until 2014, there was a change in the nature of that genocidal policy of coercion, the Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs revealed.
In the first instance, Cuba established new economic relations with countries with which it didn’t have a long-standing relation, he pointed out.
The country began in a system of international trade within capitalism, at its toughest neoliberal stage, within unipolarity and in much more difficult conditions, and that is inherently associated with the special period.
At that time, remittances to Cuba were cut off and family members of Cubans were forbidden to visit our country.
In 2014, with the process of talks with the United States, which made possible the return of the Five Cuban anti-terrorist Heroes to the Homeland, a license was approved so that Americans, who are deprived of their right to travel to this country up to this minute by the blockade, could come to the Island on individual trips. Thirty-two cooperation agreements were established which are still in force and are useful, although they are applied in a very limited way. Migratory relations were reordered and the United States abstained in the vote on the blockade against Cuba in the UN General Assembly.
Rodríguez Parrilla commented that this process has tangible beneficial results for our people, as well as for the American people and for the Cubans living in that country.
“It is a blockade in which there is no relaxation of financial measures; however, important steps are taken such as excluding Cuba from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, in which it had been unjustly included since the 1980s, during one of the most aggressive periods of U.S. imperialism against the Island,” said the member of the Political Bureau.
At the Summit of the Americas held in Panama, some time before, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz made a vibrant denunciation, of great impact, and then takes place the visit of President Barack Obama to Cuba.
FROM 2019 TO THE PRESENT DAY: A MARKED ESCALATION
The third stage starts in 2019, with President Donald Trump’s maximum pressure measures, of which more than 80 are direct sanctions, with great economic impact. These are the same measures maintained by the current administration of Joe Biden, from a regulatory and practical point of view.
Nine days before leaving the White House, he said, Trump placed Cubaon the list of countries sponsoring terrorism once again.
He further detailed that at that time, staggered and effectively designed measures are adopted to harm the economy and generate humanitarian damage.
“Remember,” he listed, “the measures against fuel, against cruises, against travel, against sanctioned Cuban entities, among others with an effect on our population.
“Consular relations are cut off, family reunification is prevented and, in turn, it is difficult for Cubans to obtain visas to travel or emigrate from Havana,” he added.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, he emphasized that the blockade attempted against imports to Cuba by prohibiting them and, in particular, it prevented the import of pulmonary ventilators and the import of oxygen from third countries, and measures were taken against the industrial scaling up of the production of our vaccines.
In 2021, when the country was going through the pandemic peak, and the United States “relaxed sanctions to practically all countries for humanitarian reasons,” the damage of the blockade to Cuba reached the figure of 4,363 million dollars, Rodríguez Parrilla said.
“The blockade causes humanitarian damage, suffering, deprivation and anguish. It is not just a violation of international and humanitarian law but also an act of war in peacetime,” he said.
“There is no doubt that our economy is developing under really oppressive, extraordinary conditions, which cause enormous economic damage, enormous humanitarian damage, but I have the deep conviction that, as has been demonstrated in these years, it is in our hands mitigate the effects of the blockade, to advance and develop by ourselves,” the Cuban Foreign Minister assured.
Translated by ESTI
