U.S. Announces Measures for Cuba, but Blockade Stays Strong

On Tuesday, the United States Treasury Department announced today measures to facilitate access to the internet in Cuba and financing for entrepreneurs, but that do not constitute changes in its economic, financial and commercial blockade against that island.

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The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of that body reported that, with immediate effect, it amended the regulations on the Caribbean country and authorized internet services, assistance to private sector entrepreneurs and expansion of financial benefits for the population.

Such a decision involves access to programs, mobile app stores, social networks, video conferencing platforms, educational, machine translation, maps, cloud content, among others, which until now were banned from the Caribbean nation as part of Washington’s policy of hostility.

However, OFAC demonstrates that the interventionist approach and limitations to the larger Antilles remain intact, stating that its measures will benefit private sector activities either individually or in cooperatives, and exclude government officials and members of the Cuban Communist Party.

 

 The text reads, 

According to Johana Tablada, deputy director general of the United States Department of Foreign Affairs, the provisions «do not touch the body of the blockade and do not modify the extreme measures and regulations applied by the governments of former President Donald Trump and the current president, Joe Biden».

Even, he warned, it will be very difficult for them to be applied, because including the island in the list of alleged sponsors of terrorism, has very big implications.

As long as we are on that list it will be impossible to make transactions. When President Barack Obama announced them (2009-2017), they could not be made. The banks were terrified of the fines stipulated by the blockade, he stressed.

Cuba is studying these decisions and, if they do not violate national legislation and mean a real opening, even for a segment of the population, will not hinder their implementation, Tablada said.