Cuba rejects new US coercive measures

HAVANA, Cuba, Dec 22 (ACN) Cuban FM Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla denounced on Monday the implementation of new measures by the United States government against Cuba, as part of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by Washington on the Caribbean country almost 60 years ago.

On Twitter, the Cuban foreign minister rejected the inclusion of three new Cuban entities in the list of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), announced on Monday by the Secretary of State of the northern nation, Mike Pompeo.

Each action of the US foreign policy reinforces the isolation and international discredit to which the Donald Trump administration and its team led that country, he said.

OFAC included three Cuban entities on its blacklist and imposed sanctions on an equal number of Nicaraguan citizens, actions that Pompeo justified under the pretext of ending economic practices that disproportionately benefit governments like Cuba and Nicaragua.

Accordingly, the US updated the relationship with three entities associated with the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces: the Business Administration Group S.A.(GAESA) and the subsidiary firms Financiera Cimex S.A.(FINCIMEX) and Kave Coffee S.A.; it also sanctioned the Nicaraguans Marvin Ramiro Aguilar, Walmaro Antonio Gutierrez and Fidel de Jesus Dominguez, Telesur reported.

Official sources recently stated that the northern country's blockade against Cuba for the first time in six decades caused losses of more than five billion dollars in one year and between April 2019 and March 2020, this extraterritorial policy caused the Caribbean country losses in the order of 5.57 billion dollars, which represents an increase of about 1.226 billion dollars.

In addition, for the first time since 1996, the US Department of State activated Title III of the Helms Burton Act.

Under this legislation, some 25 lawsuits have been filed up to March 31, 2020, of which three were withdrawn and 22 are ongoing, affecting US companies and those from third countries that have done or are doing business with Cuba.
In recent months, the United States applied 17 measures to prevent Americans and Cubans living in that country from flying to Cuba, and president Trump closed the so-called people-to-people contacts, and banned tourist trips to the island, charter flights, cruises, private planes and boats.

Even in the difficult context of the COVID-19, the northern government tightened the measures, so it is an act of economic warfare, the Cuban foreign minister said earlier this month during the presentation of the report on the effects of the blockade on Cuba.