Cargando...The hostile U.S. policy against Cuba has accumulated more than 60 years of damage. Its application has been perfected over time.
On October 29 and 30, the United Nations General Assembly will discuss the issue. It will be the thirty-second time that the world has put the United States in the dock and advocated on behalf of the Cuban people.
The report presented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs pursuant to United Nations Resolution 78/7 (Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba) details some of the most recent damages, some of which will be presented in this debate.
From this extensive material, we have selected the following examples.
– In March 2023, it was announced that MEDICUBA’s purchase of medical supplies, including drugs for the treatment of allergies, cancer and other terminal diseases, would be affected by the purchase of the Canadian company APOTEX by the U.S. company SK Capital.
– In the first half of 2023, the MUFG Bank of Japan rejected the transfer of the Chunichi Dragons franchise to the account of the World Baseball and Softball Confederation, a mechanism that had been operating since 2018 to obtain the income of contracted Cuban athletes. The reason was the link with Cuba and the possibility of incurring a violation of the US blockade laws.
– On November 21, 2023, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control («OFAC») imposed a $968 million, 618,825 penalty on Cayman Islands-based cryptocurrency company Binance Holdings, Ltd. («Binance») for violating various U.S. sanctions, including those related to the Cuban Blockade. The company was required to pay additional amounts to the Department of Justice, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for a total of $4.3 billion.
– On September 29, 2023, President Joseph Biden issued a presidential memorandum extending for another year restrictions on federal funding for cultural and educational exchanges with Cuba, among other measures. This action stemmed from Cuba’s arbitrary and unjustified continuation on Tier 3 of the State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report.
– In January 2024, the Axis Bank of India refused to process a remittance from the Indian company Panacea to Cuba as payment for inputs purchased by the CIGB for the production of the pentavalent vaccine. The bank cited Cuba’s inclusion on the U.S. government’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.
– On February 21, 2024, U.S. President Joseph Biden issued a proclamation extending for one year the national emergency with respect to Cuba declared by President William Clinton on March 1, 1996.
– On March 15, 2024, OFAC imposed a $3,740,442 penalty on EFG International AG, a Swiss-based banking company, for violations of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations and other sanctions programs.
