https://cubaminrex.cu/sites/default/files/2023-10/INFORME%20CONTRA%20EL%20BLOQUEO%202023.pdf
The economic, commercial and financial blockade is the central element that has defined the policy of the United States towards Cuba for over 60 years. The effects of this undeclared war on the economy, society, daily life and dreams of progress of over 11 million Cubans have been without a single day’s respite.
Over 80% of Cuba’s current population has never experienced life in Cuba without the blockade.
This report deals with the damage caused by the blockade in the period from 1 March 2022 to 28 February 2023, reflecting: the constant, deliberate application of a policy of maximum pressure, stepped up during the Trump administration; the persistence of the laws that embody this system of unilateral coercive measures; and the complete inaction of the present Biden administration as regards making any real progress in U.S.-Cuba bilateral relations.
Biden administration has been unable to frame its own policy on Cuba in line with the electoral promises that supported the Democratic party in 2020. In practice, it has left untouched measures of extreme hostility towards our country which continue to cause significant harm to all Cubans.
The severest of the current measures under Washington’s policy of aggression towards Cuba include: enabling action through the U.S. courts under Title III of the Helms- Burton Act; the inclusion of Cuba on the U.S. State Department’s arbitrary list of state sponsors of terrorism; persecution of the country’s financial and trading operations; the impossibility of processing non-immigrant visas in Havana; intimidation of companies that send us fuel supplies; attempts to undermine recovery of the tourism sector in the wake of the COVID 19 pandemic; and a campaign aimed at discrediting Cuba’s medical cooperation programs.
Together with the magnified effects of the blockade, Cuba has had to suffer the lingering repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on the socioeconomic life of the country and the combined impacts of a global multidimensional crisis.
From March 1, 2022 to February 28, 2023, the blockade caused losses estimated at USD 4,867,000,000 or, on average, exceeding USD 405,000,000 per month, USD 13,000,000 per day and USD 555,000 for every hour of the blockade.
It is estimated that, without the blockade, in 2022 Cuba’s GDP would have grown by 9%.
At current prices, the accumulated losses during the over 60 years of application of this policy amount to USD 159,084,300,000. Taking into account the behavior of the dollar in relation to gold in the international market, the quantifiable losses attributable to the blockade have reached USD 1,337,057,000,000; the reduction compared with the corresponding total cited in the preceding report (for the period up to February 2022) is due to the 4.2% decline in the gold price since then up to February 2023.
The blockade constitutes a massive, flagrant and systematic violation of the human rights of all Cubans. By reason of its express purpose and the political, legal and administrative structures on which it is based, it constitutes an act of genocide under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
This policy also rides roughshod over international law and the standards of international trade, in that it introduces measures for applying economic pressure which encroach on the sovereignty of third countries. By means of pressure and the use of antidemocratic, interventionist practices,
Cuba and its people are profoundly grateful for the demonstrations of solidarity and support received; we trust in the backing of the international community in our legitimate demand to put an end, once and for all and without conditions, to this unjust, illegal, callous system of unilateral coercive measures.
Few issues have encountered the unanimity of condemnation across the international community as has the blockade on Cuba. More and more forces and actors around the world are ready to accept the responsibility of denouncing this inhuman and illegal policy at every opportunity and in every forum. This report is intended as a contribution to those efforts.