Cuban-American congressmen from Florida They demanded in a letter to the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to revoke the licenses of companies doing business with Cuba, while increasing pressure for a “regime change” on the island.
María Elvira Salazar, Carlos Giménez and Mario Díaz Balart, Republican representatives from Miami, denounced that the OFAC of the Treasury Department and the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the Department of Commerce “continue to authorize transactions that benefit the Cuban regime.”
“President Donald J. Trump and Secretary (of State) Marco Rubio have been clear in their decisive action against the dictatorship in Cuba. We hope that their agencies will strongly apply US sanctions against the Cuban dictatorship,” states the letter sent to OFAC and BIS.
Legislators of Cuban origin, the most critical in Washington against the island’s government, maintained that the licenses granted to United States companies doing business with Cuba “undermine” the White House sanctions and “violate” the Freedom and Democratic Solidarity for Cuba Act, known as the Helms-Burton Act, of 1996.
For this reason, they demanded that the Department of the Treasury and Commerce carry out an exhaustive review of active licenses involving the Government of Cuba, revoke the permits of companies that “indirectly or directly benefit entities controlled by the regime” and increase the scrutiny of future permits.
Florida congressman demands that Delta and American Airlines suspend their trips to Cuba
Pressure on pressure
The petition reflects the growing pressure on the island from these three Miami congressmen after the US intervention in Caracas that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3.
Giménez demanded in letters last week that Delta, American Airlines and other airlines suspend all flights to Cuba, and in January he announced that he would ask President Trump to ban all travel and the sending of remittances to the island.
Congressmen have celebrated the “national emergency” that Trump declared the last week of January in the face of “the threat” posed by Cuba, by imposing tariffs on countries that supply oil to the island, which Washington also considers a “State that sponsors terrorism.”
“No exceptions. No loopholes. Let the law be enforced and every dollar that keeps the dictatorship in power be cut,” Salazar remarked this Wednesday.
