Cuba has introduced the first shipment in an anticipated donation from China of about 60,000 tonnes of rice, because the Caribbean island contends with an ongoing humanitarian disaster.
In a collection of social media posts on Sunday, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel confirmed that the primary load of 15,000 tonnes had arrived a day earlier within the port of Havana.
Beneficial Tales
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He additionally expressed “deep gratitude” to China, in addition to to members of the European Parliament who denounced the stress marketing campaign his authorities faces.
Since January, the US has elevated its sanctions towards Cuba, as a part of a hardline flip underneath the second time period of President Donald Trump.
“Thanks very a lot for the solidarity, and for the agency and unequivocal condemnation of the collective punishment to which our individuals are being subjected,” Diaz-Canel wrote, likening Cuba’s state of affairs to “genocide”.
Whereas Trump has sought to test China’s rising affect on Latin America, Cuba has more and more relied on the Asian superpower for help.
Already, China has donated photo voltaic panels to Cuba to assist replace its ageing vitality grid and transition the island away from fossil fuels. Presently, Cuba depends on imports for almost 60 % of its oil provide, in keeping with the Worldwide Vitality Company.
However because the begin of the 12 months, the Trump administration has largely blocked the export of oil to Cuba.
The de facto oil blockade started shortly after January 3, when the US launched a navy operation to abduct and imprison Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Trump adopted that operation with the announcement that no extra oil or funds could be transferred from Venezuela to Cuba.
By the tip of the month, he had additionally issued an government order figuring out Cuba as an “uncommon and extraordinary risk” to the US and threatening financial penalties to any nation that provides it with oil.
Since then, solely a single Russian tanker has been permitted to succeed in the island. Earlier this month, Vitality Minister Vicente de la O Levy introduced that the island had exhausted its oil provides.
Whereas Cuba is not any stranger to energy outages, the current disaster has precipitated island-wide blackouts and has introduced public companies — together with transportation and medical care — to a standstill in lots of areas.
However Trump has continued to impose sanctions on the island’s communist authorities, in an obvious effort to pressure regime change.
Media reviews have indicated he has sought Diaz-Canel’s resignation and could be open to a state of affairs akin to Venezuela’s, the place Maduro’s authorities has been left largely intact, although Maduro himself has been changed.
Trump has additionally repeatedly prompt he could take into account a military response ought to Cuba fail to offer in to his calls for, although his administration has despatched mixed messages about attainable intervention on the island.
“Different presidents have checked out this for 50, 60 years, doing one thing, and it appears like I’ll be the one which does it,” Trump stated final week from the Oval Workplace.
Negotiations between the 2 nations, nonetheless, are prone to be strained after the Trump administration unveiled a homicide indictment towards Cuba’s former president, Raul Castro, for the 1996 downing of two planes run by Cuban exiles.
Because the Nineteen Sixties, Cuba has been underneath a sweeping US commerce embargo that has weakened its economic system.
US officers, nonetheless, have blamed the Cuban authorities for financial mismanagement and the oppression of its individuals, notably political dissidents.
Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio disclosed that the Trump administration provided $100m in humanitarian help to Cuba, on the situation it implement “significant reforms”.
In Sunday’s posts, nonetheless, Diaz-Canel sought to mission defiance within the face of Trump’s “most stress” marketing campaign.
“The ‘most stress’ technique — which some within the US morbidly trumpet — is a part of a method meant to justify the false narrative of an impending collapse, and thereby pave the way in which for navy intervention,” he wrote.
Diaz-Canel added that Cuba would proceed to strengthen its ties with the US’s financial and political rival, China.
“The cherished bonds of friendship and cooperation that unite us develop stronger in these essential instances,” he stated.
