Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel has denounced what he known as an try by his United States counterpart, Donald Trump, to “suffocate” the sanctions-hit nation’s financial system.
Trump signed an government order on Thursday threatening further tariffs on international locations that promote oil to Cuba, the most recent transfer in Washington’s marketing campaign of strain on Havana. The order alleged that the federal government of communist-run Cuba was an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US nationwide safety.
In a social media submit on Friday, Diaz-Canel mentioned that underneath “a false and baseless pretext”, Trump plans “to suffocate” Cuba’s financial system by slapping tariffs “on international locations that sovereignly commerce oil” with it.
“This new measure reveals the fascist, prison and genocidal nature of a clique that has hijacked the pursuits of the American individuals for purely private ends,” he mentioned, in an obvious allusion to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Cuban American and a recognized anti-Cuban authorities hawk.
Cuba, which is struggling rolling electrical energy blackouts blamed on gas shortages, was minimize off from important provides of Venezuelan oil after the US kidnapped Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and his spouse in a bloody army night time raid on the capital, Caracas, earlier this month. No less than 32 members of Cuba’s armed forces and intelligence companies were killed within the January 3 assault.
The US has since taken efficient management of Venezuela’s oil sector, and Trump, a Republican, has issued threats towards different left-wing governments within the area, promising to cease oil shipments beforehand despatched to Cuba.
Cuba’s International Minister Bruno Rodriguez on Friday declared an “worldwide emergency” in response to Trump’s transfer, which he mentioned constitutes “an uncommon and extraordinary risk”.
Venezuela’s authorities additionally condemned the measure in an announcement on Friday, saying it violates worldwide legislation and the ideas of worldwide commerce.
Reporting from Cuba’s capital, Al Jazeera’s Ed Augustin mentioned Trump’s announcement “is a large psychological blow”, noting that analysts describe it because the “strongest financial blow america has ever dealt the island”.
‘There’s no resolution’
In Havana, residents expressed anger at Trump’s announcement, which can solely make life more durable for Cubans already combating a rise in US sanctions.
“My meals goes unhealthy. We haven’t had electrical energy since 6am,” Yenia Leon instructed Al Jazeera. “You may’t sleep. You must purchase meals daily. There’s no resolution to the facility state of affairs,” she mentioned.
“This can be a struggle,” Lazaro Alfonso, an 89-year-old retired graphic designer, instructed The Related Press information company, describing Trump because the “sheriff of the world” and saying he appears like he’s dwelling within the Wild West, the place something goes.
Alfonso, who lived by means of the extreme financial melancholy within the Nineteen Nineties often known as the “Particular Interval” following cuts in Soviet support, mentioned the present state of affairs in Cuba is worse, given the extreme blackouts, an absence of fundamental items and a shortage of gas.
“The one factor that’s lacking right here in Cuba … is for bombs to begin falling,” he mentioned.
In the meantime, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum mentioned she would search alternate options to proceed serving to Cuba after Trump’s announcement following a choice this week to briefly halt oil shipments to the island amid heightened rhetoric from Trump.
Mexico grew to become a key provider of gas to Cuba, together with Russia, after the US sanctions on Venezuela paralysed the supply of crude oil to the island.
Sheinbaum mentioned slicing off oil shipments to Cuba might set off a “far-reaching humanitarian disaster” on the island, affecting transportation, hospitals and entry to meals. She didn’t say whether or not Mexico would minimize shipments of oil or refined merchandise to Cuba, which she mentioned accounted for 1 p.c of Mexico’s manufacturing.
“Our curiosity is that the Cuban individuals don’t endure,” Sheinbaum mentioned, including that she had instructed her overseas minister to contact the US State Division to higher perceive the scope of the chief order.
Mexico provided 44 p.c of Cuban oil imports and Venezuela exported 33 p.c till final month, whereas some 10 p.c of Cuban oil is sourced from Russia. Some oil can also be sourced from Algeria, based on The Monetary Occasions figures.
In November final yr, a senior United Nations skilled said the long-running US sanctions on Cuba have to be lifted as they’re “inflicting vital results throughout all elements of life”.
The US imposed a near-total commerce embargo on Cuba in 1962, with the purpose of toppling the federal government put in place by Fidel Castro after he took energy in a 1959 revolution. Castro himself was the goal of quite a few assassination makes an attempt by the US’s Central Intelligence Company, or CIA.
Alena Douhan, particular rapporteur on the destructive impression of unilateral coercive measures on human rights, mentioned the “in depth regime of financial, commerce and monetary restrictions” towards Cuba marks the longest-running unilateral sanctions coverage in US historical past.
She famous that there are shortages of meals, drugs, electrical energy, water, important equipment and spare components in Cuba, whereas a rising emigration of expert staff, together with medical employees, engineers and academics, is additional straining the nation.
The accumulative impact has “extreme penalties for the enjoyment of human rights, together with the rights to life, meals, well being and improvement”, Douhan mentioned.
