New York, October 20th, 2023.- 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.
From 1st March 2022 and 28th February 2023, the blockade caused losses estimated at USD 4 867 000 000. This represents an average of USD 405 000 000 per month, USD 13 000 000 dólares per day and USD 555 000 for every hour of the blockade.
This period was marked by the constant and deliberate appplication of a policy of máximum preassure, stepped up during the Trump administration; the persistence of the laws that embody this system of unilateral coercive measure; and the complete inaction of the present Biden Administration.
The 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, defines the most severe aspects of the current measures under Washington’s policy of aggression towards Cuba.
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.
The blockade directly causes extreme harm through the combined effects of its various measures, pursuing its cruel, practical aim of depriving the country of the inflow of funds essential for the purchase of food, supplies, equipment, spare parts, technologies and software.
These measures are accompanied by a media campaign against Cuba emanating from the U.S. broadcasting and intelligence services which conveys a distorted virtual picture,
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.
No other nation has been obliged to take on a social and development program under such conditions of prolonged systematic hostility on the part of the greatest power in human history.
Next November 1st and 2nd, the United Nations General Assembly will consider and vote the draft resolution “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States against Cuba”. Once again, the international community will raise its voice to overwhemingly reject this unjust, ilegal and cruel policy.
Cuban Permanent Mission to the United Nations