US Blockade Costs Cuba $100 Billion

The U.S. blockade, which has lasted for more than half a century, has cost Cuba $100 billion, announced Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez in his report on the damages of the policy to the Caribbean country.

The figure is the result of a calculation at current prices, disclosed Rodríguez in a video conference with the Permanent Mission of Cuba from Havana before the United Nations.

Calculated rigorously and conservatively, based on the depreciation of the dollar against gold, damages until 2011 amount to $1.66 trillion.

The economic damages are extraordinary; for a small economy such as Cuba, they turn out to be an overwhelming burden, he added when he released the report about Resolution 66/6 of the UN General Assembly or “Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial and Financial Embargo Imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.”

“The blockade is undoubtedly the main cause of the economic problems of our country and the main obstacle to economic and social development,” said the head of Cuban diplomacy.

“The United States has responded to the global call to cease the blockade by tightening,” he stressed after stating that President Barack Obama has applied the blockade extensively and hardened the terms of its application.

Washington, he continued, has increased the harassment and the persecution of financial operations, including those conducted in currencies other than the dollar.

In 2011, the Office of Foreign Assets Control collected $89 million; in 2012 they have so far collected $622 million, he said.

During Obama’s administration (since 2009), the fines for sanctions exceeded $2 trillion which includes penalties for the application of the blockade to Cuba and other countries.

“The human damage is invaluable. The blockade causes suffering, shortages and difficulties that reach every Cuban family, child, woman and elderly person,” he complained after adding that such policy is a massive, flagrant and systematic violation of human rights.