In a statement issued on Friday by the White House to the offices of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the US president decided to maintain the trade embargoes on Cuba, which have been in place for more than six decades.
“The exercise of certain authorities under the Trading with the Enemy Act is scheduled to expire on September 14, 2022. I hereby determine that the continuation of the exercise of those authorities with respect to Cuba for one year is in the national interest of the United States,” the note said.
For his part, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla condemned the so-called “Trading with the Enemy Act” that maintains the blockade of the island and affirmed that by extending this regulation for another year, Biden became the twelfth US president to ratify the framework that sustains “the policy of abuse against the island and its people”.
The US sanctions regime “is rejected by almost all the member countries of the international community”, the head of Cuban diplomacy stressed on Twitter.
According to data presented by Havana in 2021, the US blockade of Cuba has caused material damages of 147,853 million dollars since February 1962, without counting the humanitarian effect on the population.
The end of the criminal blockade of the island is a global demand. The UN General Assembly has unanimously passed nearly 30 resolutions against the blockade since 1992, when it began voting annually on the issue.
However, not only has the US not taken a single step to ease the embargoes, but these coercive measures were reinforced during Donald Trump’s term in office (2017-2021), with 243 provisions still in place under his Democratic successor, Biden.
