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FEBRUARY 05,2021

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Wyden Introduces Bill to End Cuba Embargo and Establish Normal Trade Relations

Washington, D.C. – Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., last night introduced the U.S.-Cuba Trade Act of 2021 to repeal outdated sanctions on Cuba and establish normal trade relations with the island nation.

“Our nation’s embargo on Cuba is an artifact from the 1960s. To continue this outdated, harmful policy of isolation would be a failure of American leadership. While Trump increased tensions with Cuba during his disastrous time in office, I am optimistic about President Biden’s new diplomatic course,” Wyden said. “Regardless, Congress has a moral and economic obligation to the American people to improve U.S.-Cuban relations as swiftly and safely as possible.” 

The U.S.-Cuba Trade Act of 2021 would repeal the major statutes that codify sanctions against Cuba, including the Helms-Burton Act and the Cuban Democracy Act, as well as other provisions that affect trade, investment and travel with Cuba. It would also establish normal trade relations with the country.  

Joining Wyden on the bill were U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.

A copy of bill text is available here. 

Cuban patriots, wherever they live, know the blockade is criminal
President Miguel Díaz-Canel thanked the Cuban émigré community in the United States for organizing caravans to denounce the U.S. blockade

Granmafebruary 3, 2021 08:02:24

Photo: twitter.com/DiazCanelB
President Miguel Díaz-Canel thanked the Cuban émigré community in the United States, who took the lead this Sunday, January 31, in a caravan to denounce the blockade imposed on our country.

On his Twitter account, the President emphasized that Cuban patriots, wherever they live, understand that the hostile U.S. policy is a crime against the people of the island, writing, “Cuba thanks its emigrant sons and daughters for the Bridges of Love caravan.”

On bicycles and cars, carrying flags and posters with messages condemning the blockade and promoting “Bridges of love” between the Caribbean nation and the United States, participants demanded an end to coercive measures against Cuba, and called for the unity emigrants to achieve these goals, Prensa Latina reported. Caravans were organized to take place on the date in the U.S. cities of Miami, New York, Los Angeles and Seattle.

On Saturday the 30th, member groups of the Alianza Martiana Coalition in Miami condemned subversive campaigns against the Cuban people and government, describing such activity as an old habit directed and financed by organizations with a long counterrevolutionary history in the United States.

A message for promoters of the blockade: No one here surrenders
Trump has extended for another year the Trading with the Enemy Act that sustains the U.S. blockade of Cuba. The siege is tightened and the harassment stepped up, the maliciousness and perversity continue.

Raúl Antonio Capoteseptember 17, 2020 10:09:31

Trump has extended for another year the Trading with the Enemy Act that sustains the U.S. blockade of Cuba. The siege is tightened and the harassment stepped up, the maliciousness and perversity continue. A cruel, inhuman blockade. But no one here surrenders, responded President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel, via Twitter, quoting Comandante Juan Almeida Bosque.

As has occurred every year since the 1960s, this 2020 the U.S. President reactivated the legislation originally enacted on October 6, 1917, which allows the chief executive to restrict trade and impose economic sanctions on nations the government considers “hostile.”

A presidential memorandum to the secretaries of State and the Treasury, published September 9 on the White House website, stated, “I hereby determine that the continuation of the exercise of those authorities with respect to Cuba for 1 year is in the national interest of the United States.”

According to the news agency Prensa Latina, Donald Trump also expanded his powers to have greater freedom of action in enforcing sanctions and issuing permits for specific individual transactions.

The Trading with the Enemy Act is an instrument regulating the activity of the U.S. executive branch, approved by Congress more than 100 years ago, currently only applicable to Cuba, although China, the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea and Vietnam have also been subjected to its provisions in the past.

In 1977, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act restricted the President’s authority to impose sanctions based on protecting national security, while the Trading with the Enemy Act continued in effect for Cuba, even though the White House has never declared a national emergency related to our country.

This body of law is part of the legal scaffolding sustaining the economic, commercial, financial blockade of Cuba, that includes other legislation like the Foreign Assistance Act (1961), the Export Administration Act (1979), the Torricelli Act (1992), the Helms-Burton (1996) and the Export Administration Regulations Act (1979).

The blockade is an act of genocide against our people, meant to create scarcity, material shortages, and the interruption of public services, to generate discontent and dissatisfaction, with the goal of blaming the Revolution for the chaos – conduct than can only be described as cynical and immoral.

Fifty-eight years later, Cuba continues to resist U.S. blockade
The U.S. blockade on Cuba was imposed February 7, 1962, by President John F. Kennedy, and has recently reached increasingly extreme dimensions

Author: Enrique Moreno Gimeranez | informacion@granmai.cu
february 4, 2020 09:02:02

 

 

 

 

 

Photo: José Manuel Correa
The blockade is real and has lasted more than five decades. Generations of Cubans have suffered its consequences. Its impact is felt in all sectors of society and constitutes a flagrant violation of the human rights of our people, an act of genocide and of economic warfare, the main obstacle to our development, violating international law, the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter and the principles of free trade.

The economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States began February 7, 1962, reaching increasingly extreme dimensions recently. At current prices, the accumulated damages over almost six decades of this policy, through March of 2019, reached the figure of 138,842,400,000 dollars and, taking into account the depreciation of the dollar as compared to the price of gold on the international market, the blockade has caused quantifiable damages of more than 922,630,000,000 dollars – although its cost within households, neighborhoods and communities is incalculable, given the harm caused to human lives every day.

Yesterday, February 3, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, tweeted: “We condemn the genocidal, cruel, murderous blockade. The blockade violates our human rights,” on the occasion of the 58th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s signing of Presidential Proclamation 3447 (27 fr 1085), imposing the blockade on trade between the United States and Cuba.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla likewise posted a message stating: “58 years after its imposition, the U.S. blockade against Cuba constitutes the most unjust, severe and prolonged system of unilateral coercive measures ever applied against any country. It is genocidal, violates the human rights of an entire people, and must end.

The blockade persists and harms families, but it has failed to achieve its central objective of defeating the Cuban Revolution. The unity, perseverance and dignity of our people, our unbreakable spirit has resisted all coercion and pressure.

Twelve U.S. administrations, since 1959, have only managed to isolate themselves, as evidenced by universal rejection of the blockade, evident in many sectors of U.S. society that favor respectful, mutually beneficial ties, and in the international community’s rejection of the hostile policy, including 28 consecutive resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly, since 1992, condemning the blockade.