The Cuban government hailed Monday as “a small step in the right direction” the lifting by the US administration of a series of restrictions on the country, but stressed that this “does not modify the embargo” in force since 1962.
• Read also: Washington lifts a series of restrictions on Cuba
“The US government’s announcement is a small step in the right direction”, but “neither the objectives nor the main instruments of the United States’ policy against Cuba, which is a failure, are changing”, reacted on Twitter the Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez.
President Joe Biden’s administration announced on Monday the lifting of a series of restrictions on Cuba, including on immigration procedures, money transfers and air connections.
These are “positive measures, but of very limited scope”, also estimated the head of Cuban diplomacy in a statement published on the ministry’s website.
He pointed out that these are “some of President Biden’s promises during the 2020 election campaign to alleviate the inhuman decisions made by President Trump’s administration, which have tightened the blockade to unprecedented levels, and the policy of maximum pressure since then applied against our country”.
But “the announcements in no way modify the blockade or the main economic siege measures taken by Trump” and “do not eliminate travel bans (to Cuba, editor’s note) for Americans”.
Above all, “it does not negate the arbitrary and fraudulent placement of Cuba on the State Department’s list of countries that allegedly support terrorism, one of the main causes of the difficulties that Cuba faces in its commercial and financial transactions in many places around the world.
The minister, however, underlines the “willingness” of his government “to enter into a respectful dialogue on an equal footing with the government of the United States”.
After the historic rapprochement between Cuba and the United States between 2014 and 2016, under President Barack Obama, relations between the two countries cooled again with a salvo of sanctions from the Donald Trump administration, until now all maintained by the Biden administration.
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