For Vicente Amor, vice president of the company asc Internacional USA, a Tampa-based travel agency, the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States on Cuba more than 60 years ago -rekindled during the administration of Donald Trump, with measures maintained, for the most part, by current President Joe Biden-, is a serious obstacle for business ties between the two countries.
With Cuban roots, this businessman has had commercial relations with the island for more than 20 years and, through his firm, he brings groups of people interested in getting to know the archipelago and in some way interacting with the government and the people. "We have brought mayors, congressmen, senators, people from the Government, city councilors, businessmen, lawyers and university students", he said.
He described as very negative the U.S. policy of blockade, because those measures, he says, almost paralyzed all the commercial activity of his company, because there is no possibility of air connections with the provinces and many other prohibitions.
"Sometimes we focus on the economic damage, which is devastating, but the inclusion of Cuba in the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, a totally absurd and senseless measure, also causes terrible consequences", acknowledged the businessman, a participant in the First International Fair of Transportation and Logistics, which was held recently in Havana.
He argues that including Cuba in this spurious list led to the restriction of banking operations for his company. "There are Cubans inside the U.S. who do not want any kind of nexus or negotiation with the Revolutionary Government here. They express that freely, and lobby in favor of those prohibitions; they give money to politicians to support their positions; but there is another group of Cubans who do not agree with that approach, who believe that, regardless of differences of a theoretical, practical or ideological nature, we can negotiate and understand each other," he commented.
"We want to make it known that, under the same right that those people have, we are interested in being heard, and we are going to be interacting with U.S. politicians to show them that there should be a good relationship with this neighbor called Cuba."
He said that his fellow countrymen arrived in a country where there are laws that guarantee an orderly society and, nevertheless, prohibit the natural citizen of that country, that is, the American citizen, to come to Cuba. "Now they want to prohibit the business group from doing business with Cuba, under what principles, under what fundamentals of the U.S. Constitution can that be done?" asked Vicente Amor.
He stressed that Cuban laws stimulate the commercial exchange between private entrepreneurs of the Island with the rest of the world, and said that his company, for more than 20 years, has been successful in Cuba, because it has been a respectful relationship, and recognized the new scenario as an opportunity to expand business.