On January 14, 2025, the U.S. Government announced the decision to: 1) exclude Cuba from the State Department’s list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism; 2) make use of the presidential prerogative to prevent action in U.S. courts against lawsuits filed under Title III of the Helms-Burton Act; and 3) eliminate the list of restricted Cuban entities that designates a group of institutions with which U.S. citizens and institutions are prohibited from engaging in financial transactions, which has had an effect on third countries.

Despite its limited nature, this is a decision in the right direction and in line with the sustained and firm demand of the Government and the people of Cuba, and with the broad, emphatic and reiterated call of numerous governments, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, of Cubans living abroad, of political, religious and social organizations, and of numerous political figures in the United States and other countries. The Government of Cuba thanks everyone for their contribution and sensitivity.

This decision puts an end to specific coercive measures that, together with many others, cause serious damage to the Cuban economy, with a severe effect on the population. This is and has been an issue in Cuba’s official exchanges with the U.S. Government.

It is important to point out that the economic blockade and a good part of the dozens of coercive measures that were put into effect since 2017 to reinforce it remain in force, with full extraterritorial effect and in violation of International Law and the human rights of all Cubans.

To cite just a few examples, the illegal and aggressive persecution continues against fuel supplies that Cuba has a legitimate right to import. The cruel and absurd persecution of Cuba’s legitimate international medical cooperation agreements with other countries continues, threatening to deprive millions of people of health services and limiting the potential of Cuba’s public health system. Cuba’s international financial transactions or those of any nationals that are related to Cuba remain under prohibition and retaliation. Merchant ships docking in Cuba also remain under threat.

On the other hand, every U.S. citizen, company and subsidiary entity of a U.S. corporation is prohibited from trading with Cuba or Cuban entities, except for very restricted and regulated exceptions. Harassment, intimidation and threats against the national of any country that intends to trade with or invest in Cuba continue to be official U.S. policy. Cuba continues to be a destination that the U.S. Government prohibits its citizens from visiting.

The economic war remains and persists in posing the fundamental obstacle to the development and recovery of the Cuban economy at a high human cost to the population, and continues to be a stimulus to emigration.

The decision announced today by the United States corrects, in a very restricted way, aspects of a cruel and unjust policy. It is a correction that occurs now, on the verge of a change of government, when it should have been made years ago, as an elementary act of justice, without demanding anything in return and without fabricating pretexts to justify inaction, if it was desired to act correctly. In order to exclude Cuba from the arbitrary list of State sponsors of terrorism, it should have been enough to acknowledge the truth, the total absence of reasons for such designation and the exemplary performance of our country in the fight against terrorism, which even U.S. government agencies have admitted.
It is known that the U.S. government could reverse the measures adopted today in the future, as has happened on other occasions and as a sign of the lack of legitimacy, ethics, consistency and reason in its conduct against Cuba.

To do so, U.S. politicians do not usually stop to find honest justification, as long as the vision described in 1960 by the then Assistant Secretary of State Lester Mallory, and the goal described by him of subduing the Cubans by means of economic siege, misery, hunger and desperation, remains in force. They would not stop at justifications as long as that government continues to be incapable of recognizing and accepting Cuba’s right to self-determination, and as long as it continues to be willing to assume the political cost of international isolation caused by its genocidal and illegal policy of economic asphyxiation against Cuba.

Cuba will continue to confront and denounce this policy of economic warfare, the interference programs and the disinformation and discrediting operations financed every year with tens of millions of dollars from the U.S. federal budget. It will also remain willing to develop a relationship of respect with that country, based on dialogue and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, despite differences.

Havana, January 14, 2025

More than 500,000 people flooded Havana’s Malecon this Friday to send, as a message across the ocean, a claim to the U.S. government against the blockade and the permanence of Cuba on the list of alleged state sponsors of terrorism.

The first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, condemned U.S. President Joe Biden for continuing the hostility of his predecessor, Donald Trump, who will return to the White House in January.

He highlighted the arrogance to keep the Island on the aforementioned list, a doubly immoral accusation, since it comes from an administration that promotes violent actions against the largest of the Antilles and has become an asylum for the members of that machinery of hatred.

In contrast, there is no rancor against the northern people, but in the face of imperialism and its attempts to destroy our sovereignty, “we will demonstrate today, tomorrow and always,” Díaz-Canel assured.

In the presence of Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, leader of the Cuban Revolution, Yankiel Cardoso Muñoz, president of the Ceiba-Kolhy Popular Council, demonstrated in the capital’s Playa neighborhood.

He explained to his son Antuán Cardoso Chaviano, with the phrase “I want to grow up without a blockade” on his sweater, how these measures limit his happiness.

Meanwhile, Yolanda Isabel Acosta Rosell, a 7-year-old student, asked her mother to take her for the first time to a mobilization of such magnitude and said: “I was born here and I’m going to stay here”.

Colombian Silvia Juliana Casadiegos González has been studying at the Latin American School of Medicine since 2019, thanks to Cuba’s role in the peace process in her nation. “They have help me fulfill my dream and, for this reason, they deserve to be unblocked.”

Greater political will to address the structural and moral failures of the international system that prevent progress towards a just future demanded the member of the Political Bureau of the Party and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, before the UN General Assembly.
In his speech at the Summit of the Future, the Cuban Foreign Minister reviewed the challenges facing developing nations and the need for truly profound reforms to eliminate them, Prensa Latina reported.
“The peoples need less interference and more solidarity; less unequal exchange and more equity; less politicization and double standards and more dialogue, cooperation and respect for their inalienable right to choose their political, economic, social and cultural system,” he said.
Rodríguez Parrilla reiterated that, for Cuba, the main obstacle to well-being and development is the criminal blockade of the United States and its infamous inclusion in the arbitrary and unilateral list of States that allegedly sponsor terrorism.
In his words, he stressed that “our futuristic debates are taking place while the genocide in Palestine continues, without an effective response from the international community, when even the institutions and workers of the United Nations are being targeted by Israel’s fire.”
He added that, for millions of people in the global South, the possibility of a dignified future is and will remain a utopia.
“It will be difficult to believe in that promised future as long as developed countries oppose deep reform of the international financial architecture, discussions of which should be centered at the United Nations,” he said.
If these claims have been watered down in the Pact for the Future, should we believe in the promises of greater access to the resources indispensable for our development? How can we trust in the promise of peace, non-interference and multilateralism while coercion, selfishness, domination and hegemonism grow and the UN Charter and international law are violated?, the senior diplomat questioned.
As part of his agenda in New York, the Cuban Foreign Minister also participated, last Saturday, in the 5th Meeting of Cubans living in the United States.
He thanked the work of a large group of Cuban nationals who maintain their public actions in support of the elimination of the blockade and the definitive withdrawal of Cuba from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, policies that have a direct impact on the quality of life and the purchasing power of families. He also recognized the work of associations and Cubans living in that nation for their humanitarian projects.