Cuba acknowledged its failures in the face of the island’s economic crisis but accused the US of suffocating it

The Cuban government on Thursday acknowledged its responsibility for managing the deep economic crisis that the island is experiencing, but accused the United States of pressuring it to the point of suffocation with hardened financial sanctions.

“Of course, not all the difficulties that determine the complicated situation of the Cuban economy today are due to the blockade (the sanctions). There are also structural problems of the economy, difficulties in our economic management,” said Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez. “But there is no doubt that the fundamental and determining weight is the intensification, the extreme, unprecedented hardening of the blockade since 2019.”

Rodriguez led a press conference to present a report that will be taken to the United Nations in order to obtain a worldwide condemnation of the United States sanctions. The diplomatic exercise that takes place annually will take place on the 29th and 30th of this month, he said.

Cuba suffered losses of more than 5 billion dollars between March 2023 and February 2024 due to the United States sanctions against the Caribbean nation, according to the report of the island’s government released the day before, almost 200 million more than in the previous cycle.

According to the minister, the island’s GDP would have grown by 8% if there had been no embargo, and he estimated that during that period some 421 million dollars were lost each month due to the sanctions.

If the United States lifted the sanctions imposed on the island for 25 days, the country’s medical needs would be covered for a year, and with four months without measures, the delivery of the basic food basket – which is given to each Cuban – would be achieved annually, the official explained.

With 18 days without the US embargo, the cost of maintenance required for the entire national energy system would be covered, he said.

The figures estimated by Rodriguez showed the impact of sanctions on a small island like Cuba in key sectors that are under severe crisis, such as medicines, food, energy and fuel.

Official figures released in recent months indicated that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell by 11% in 2020, and the Cuban economy barely grew by 1.3% in 2021 and 2% in 2022, before contracting by 2% in 2023.

While official inflation was 70% in 2021, 39% in 2022 and 30% in 2023, observers have indicated that these figures are conservative in relation to the real deterioration in the purchasing power of wages, especially in the state sector.

The critical situation also caused a migratory boom of more than half a million Cubans who arrived at the border between Mexico and the United States and an undetermined number to European countries such as Spain or Italy.

Sanctions were imposed by the United States in the 1960s to pressure a change in the political model. Last decade, President Barack Obama said that the objective had not been met and relaxed them, but his successor Donald Trump increased them dramatically, claiming that this would be a way to bring about the fall of socialism and achieve a multi-party system on the island.

Joe Biden kept Trump’s Cuba policy almost unchanged.

Rodriguez refused to say whether the island’s authorities preferred a new Democratic or Republican White House president after the November elections in the neighboring country and instead offered to hold talks with whoever it was.

“Cuba has always been willing to engage in serious and responsible dialogue, on the basis of equality and without prejudice to our independence and sovereignty, with any Republican or Democratic government of the United States,” the foreign minister said.

During the diplomatic exercise at the United Nations last year – reports were submitted as far back as the 1990s – 187 countries voted in favor of the resolution to lift sanctions against Cuba, while two voted against – the United States and Israel – and one abstained, Ukraine. The mandate issued by the multinational forum is not binding.

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