Above Photo: In 2017, the world ratified its support for Cuba and condemned once again the blockade with 191 votes in favor and only the United States and Israel against. Photo: @ CubaMINREX / Twitter.
Between April 2017 and March 2018 the US policy towards Cuba intensified and the economic aggression and siege cost the Caribbean country more than 4 321 million dollars, which brings to a total of 933 678 million the cost of the losses suffered by the island in almost six decades of application of the blockade , according to official estimates revealed this Friday in Havana.
In its annual report on the damage caused to Cuba by the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States for 60 years, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicates that the Trump administration “imposed a serious setback to bilateral relations , after the official resumption in 2015 under the governments of Barack Obama and Raúl Castro.
In 2017 Trump signed the “Presidential National Security Memorandum on Strengthening US Policy towards Cuba,” a document that implied the tightening of the blockade . Five months later, the US Commerce, Treasury and State departments issued new regulations and provisions to comply with that memorandum.
The measures applied consequently restricted the right of Americans to travel to Cuba to a greater level and imposed additional obstacles to the limited opportunities of the US business sector on the Island.
Among its consequences have been the decrease in visits to Cuba from the United States and greater obstacles to relations between Cuban companies and potential partners from the United States and third countries.
These measures – the report warns – affect not only the Cuban state economy, but also the non-state sector of the country , and even other nations given its extraterritorial nature.
The report, which supports a draft resolution proposed by Cuba to the General Assembly of the United Nations on the need to end the blockade, estimates in damages of 933 678 million dollars for that policy over 60 years, taking into account account the depreciation of the dollar against the value of gold in the international market.
At current prices, the blockade has caused Cuba quantifiable damages that exceed 134 499 million dollars , the text indicates.
The document details the affectations suffered by the Island in different sectors, from food, health and education, to foreign trade and finance, among others.
For Cuba, this US policy is a massive, flagrant and systematic violation of the human rights of the entire Cuban people and qualifies as an act of genocide, under the 1948 Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
The complaint, moreover, as a violation of the Charter of the United Nations and International Law, and as an obstacle to international cooperation.
On October 31, the General Assembly of the United Nations will again vote on a draft resolution on the need to end the blockade proposed by Cuba.
It will be the twenty-seventh consecutive year in which the voting of the initiative takes place, which since 1992 has won the majority support annually in the main deliberative organ of the United Nations.
In the last three years, 191 of the 193 member states of the UN supported the project. The 2017 vote only registered opposition from the United States and Israel.