Cuba asks Joe Biden to lift sanctions that are from his faculty

Yesterday, the Government of Cuba asked Joe Biden to go further and lift the United States sanctions against the island that are attributable to the president, after Washington announced a emergency aid of two million dollars for the island for Hurricane Ian.

The United States “would have a moral duty” to apply exemptions to Cuba in the same way that it did with other countries during the pandemic and in the face of natural disasters, said Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez when presenting the report on the impact of the embargo.

In that sense, he added that “it could take measures to lift or relax the blockade in dozens of areas using executive powers.”

“It is what morality, it is what decency and it is even what the national interest with politics and international law would demand,” Rodríguez said.

The foreign minister thanked the “critical humanitarian aid” announced by Washington through the United States Agency for International Development, after Ian left two dead and heavy losses at the end of September.

The head of diplomacy also said that after the fire in August at a fuel storage plant in the province of Matanzas that destroyed four mega-tanks of crude oil, The United States offered two virtual technical consultancies and 100 uniforms for firefighters, of which only 43 have arrived.

In addition to 17 deaths, the fire caused material losses, including $100 million for the fuel burned alone, Rodríguez explained.

The aid from Washington for Ian and the fire is not “measured by its economic magnitude but by being an act of a humanitarian nature that we appreciate,” the foreign minister added.

Cuba is going through its worst economic crisis in three decades with food, medicine and fuel shortages, while facing daily blackouts due to its obsolete thermoelectric plants.

This situation has been aggravated since the former US president Donald Trump toughened as of 2018 the embargo imposed on Cuba since 1962, as well as due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

When he arrived at the White House in January 2021, Biden promised to review the policy towards Cubabut hardened the speech after the outcome of the massive anti-government protests of July 2021.