New York, 17 November 2020. Between April 2019 and March 2020, the U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments, in keeping with the policy of hostility announced by the Donald Trump´s government, introduced regulatory changes under the laws of the blockade against Cuba. To the impacts stemming from these modifications, mainly on the travel and financial sectors, mechanisms of persecution of Cuba's operations in third countries added up, which brought about a highly dissuasive and intimidating effect on foreign counterparts, with the consequent damage to the Cuban economy.
In the period under review, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed 12 penalties on U.S. and third-country institutions for violating the Cuban Assets Control Regulations. The sum of these penalties exceeded 2.4 trillion dollars. Other sanctions included:
On 5 April 2019, the US Department of the Treasury´s OFAC included in its list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDN), 34 vessels owned by the Venezuelan state-run oil company PDVSA, as well as two other foreign companies, for sending crude oil to Cuba; while on 12 April, OFAC punished 4 companies and 9 vessels operating in the Venezuelan oil sector, some of which would have carried oil to Cuba.
On 11 April 2019, OFAC imposed sanctions on British-based oil companies 2H OFFSHORE and ACTEON GROUP Ltd. for violating the Cuban Assets Control Regulations. The amount to be paid by both companies was 227,500 and 213,866 dollars, respectively.
On 15 April 2019, OFAC imposed penalties on the companies in the financial and banking sector UniCredit Bank AG (Germany), UniCredit Bank Austria AG (Austria) and UniCredit Bank SpA (Italy), in the amount of 1.3 billion dollars. Those firms would have allegedly made bank transfers in violation of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations.
On 24 April 2019, the Department of State updated the List of Cuba Restricted Entities, by adding 5 new entities, for a total of 216. In July, a new update to this list was announced, with the addition of 2 other entities, for a total of 218. The list was updated for the third time on 15 November 2019, with the addition of 5 new entities, bringing the total number to 223.
On 10 January 2020, the Department of Transportation suspended all charter flights between the United States and Cuba, except those to the José Martí International Airport in Havana. Likewise, the Transportation Department imposed a cap on the number of charter flights to this airport. By 23 August of the same year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would announce that he had ordered the Department of Transportation to suspend all private charter flights between the United States and Cuba.
On 26 February 2020, the new regulations of the U.S. WESTERN UNION company came into force, eliminating the possibility of sending remittances to Cuba from third countries.
Permanent Mission to the United Nations.