The fact that the Microsoft company is paying more than three million dollars in fines for allegedly violating U.S. punitive measures against Cuba and other countries shows just how much the blockade against the island is in force today.
The U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments declared that they reached a joint agreement with the U.S. multinational technology company on the apparent violations of the export control and sanctions regulations imposed by Washington.
According to the former, most of the alleged 1,339 violations - for which a sum amounting to 3,327,896 dollars is to be paid - involved blacklisted Russian entities in Crimea, but others were linked to Cuba, Iran and Syria.
The alleged violations occurred in the context of Microsoft's third-party distribution and resale programs, according to the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the entity in charge of enforcing U.S. sanctions.
In addition, the company's employees allegedly involved in the misconduct are subject to disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal, a company spokesman was quoted as saying by The Wall Street Journal.
Far from fulfilling the objectives of bringing governments to their knees, the sanctions imposed by the United States on other countries do systematically cause damage and civilian casualties, some analysts in the United States consistently denounce.
This also emerged from statements made by the US Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, who recently affirmed how punitive policies against Iran, for example, simply do not work in their ambition to promote political change.
This was a rather significant admission, according to an analysis posted on the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft site, as that official heads the government agency responsible for developing and enforcing U.S. economic and trade sanctions regimes.
As recognized by the Center for Economic and Policy Research of the United States, the 60-year blockade against Cuba is one of the oldest and strictest of all the sanctions regimes implemented by Washington.
After a brief relaxation under the Barack Obama administration (2009-2017), the coercive measures were tightened and expanded under Donald Trump (2017-2021), a policy that the president, Joe Biden, maintains for the most part.
Cuba, for its part, consistently denounces the intimidating and extraterritorial effects of the blockade that affects even U.S. entities and citizens.
The island has the almost unanimous support of the international community in its struggle to lift the siege whose purpose is to fill the people with hardship.