Despite U.S. government restrictions, Americans travel to Cuba

HAVANA, Cuba, Jan 8 (ACN) Despite restrictions imposed by the U.S. government, more than 639,000 U.S. citizens traveled to Cuba in 2018, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said.

This is evidence that Americans know more and more that in Cuba there are guarantees for their security and it is a peaceful, pleasant and cultured country, said Rodriguez during an intervention in the broadcasting space Round Table.
Rodriguez pointed out that there are favorable but limited factors to advance relations between the two countries, such as the existence of embassies in the capitals of the two nations, and cooperation in sectors such as migration and compliance with the law of international law.
He added that signs have been identified of power groups that are preparing to tighten more the commercial, economic and financial blockade that for more than 50 years has been imposed on the people of Cuba, with the purpose of more aggressively applying their extraterritoriality and create obstacles to issues such as the pending economic compensation between the two countries.
The diplomat pointed out that the political manipulation of sonic incidents reported by U.S. representatives at the Washington embassy in Havana continues, despite the fact that the Cuban government has not received any scientific evidence on this issue nor has it responded to their offers for medical collaboration.
He recalled the recent words of Raúl Castro, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, at the event for the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, in which he expressed his willingness to live together peacefully on the basis of mutual respect for sovereignty, although a course towards confrontation is in sight, which means a significant setback.
Rodríguez pointed out that an expression of the international isolation of the US government on this issue was the victory of Cuban diplomacy in the votes against the blockade in the General Assembly of the United Nations, last November, in which in less than an hour the international community voted on 10 occasions against this anachronistic position, remnant of the Cold War.
On that occasion, through pressure and manipulation, U.S. diplomatic officials presented eight proposals for amendments to the draft presented by Cuba, which were not approved by the broad majority, which subsequently approved the document proposed by the Cuban delegation.