Cuba condemns U.S. blockade, 59 years after its official application

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 4 (ACN) On the 59th anniversary of the U.S. president's signing of the economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla condemned in his Twitter account what he described as a cold war policy and the longest and most comprehensive siege against any country, calling it a failure.

As a result of this policy and all the provisions laid down under the Donald Trump Administration, between April 2019 and March 2020—a period marked by a setback in US-Cuba relations and unprecedented levels of hostility— Cuba lost over five billion dollars. In almost 60 years, the Island has suffered damages amounting to 144,413 billion 400 thousand dollars.

Rodríguez Parrilla denounced last December the tightening of the blockade, even in the context of the fight against COVID-19 pandemic, by way of new obstacles to the arrival of donations and imports, the campaign against Cuban medical cooperation, cutbacks on air transportation, rules against remittances, and the inclusion of Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, all of which makes it extremely difficult for Cuba to get equipment and raw materials for the production of medicines against SARS-CoV-2.