Cuba condemns new US escalation of economic blockade

The Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Gov­ern­ment of Cu­ba has con­demned a new es­ca­la­tion of mea­sures by the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment aimed at re­strict­ing fu­el sup­plies to the coun­try.

In a state­ment is­sued in Ha­vana on Jan­u­ary 30, the gov­ern­ment said an ex­ec­u­tive or­der signed by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump on Jan­u­ary 29 de­clares a na­tion­al emer­gency that would al­low the Unit­ed States to im­pose trade tar­iffs on im­ports from coun­tries sup­ply­ing oil to Cu­ba.

The state­ment said the or­der in­cludes ac­cu­sa­tions against Cu­ba, in­clud­ing a claim that the coun­try pos­es a threat to Unit­ed States na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. The gov­ern­ment re­ject­ed this claim and said it is aware that such as­ser­tions are not sup­port­ed by facts.

Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment, the ex­ec­u­tive or­der seeks to in­crease pres­sure on ex­ist­ing re­stric­tions that have been in place since Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s first term. It said the mea­sures aim to pre­vent fu­el from en­ter­ing Cu­ba through pres­sure on third coun­tries.

The Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Gov­ern­ment said the or­der rep­re­sents a vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law and con­flicts with the Procla­ma­tion of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace. It added that the pol­i­cy re­flects an at­tempt to dic­tate trade re­la­tions be­tween sov­er­eign states.

The state­ment said the Unit­ed States has pur­sued sim­i­lar poli­cies to­ward Cu­ba for 67 years and has not achieved its ob­jec­tives. It not­ed that Cu­ba has ex­pressed will­ing­ness to en­gage in di­a­logue with the Unit­ed States based on in­ter­na­tion­al law, sov­er­eign equal­i­ty, and non-in­ter­fer­ence.

The gov­ern­ment said Cu­ba does not pose a threat to the Unit­ed States and is not sub­ject to sanc­tions by the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. It added that Cuban cit­i­zens have treat­ed Unit­ed States vis­i­tors with re­spect when trav­el has been per­mit­ted.

The state­ment said Cu­ba will re­spond to the new mea­sures with re­solve and reaf­firmed its po­si­tion on na­tion­al sov­er­eign­ty.