Why did the United States impose the blockade on Cuba in 1962? | News

On February 7, 1962, the then president of the United States (USA), John F. Kennedy, declared the unilateral blockade of that country against Cuba, through the Foreign Aid Act of 1961, thus fulfilling the mandate expressed by Congress.

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Four days earlier, on February 3, Kennedy signed the presidential order to implement a total blockade against the Island, whose objective was to cut all kinds of commercial ties with Cuba and surround the country to provoke the overthrow of the revolutionary government.

However, since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, the US administrations began the harassment and sanctions against the largest of the Antilles, while waiting for the end of the revolutionary process in a matter of months.

Thus, as early as January 3, 1961, the US president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba a few days after handing over his seat in the White House to the Kennedy successor of his policies.

In March of that same year, the US government included in the Export Regulations a list of food products and medicines that required a general license to be able to export them to the Island. It was one of the first measures of the Kennedy administration, which announced the prelude to the economic, commercial and financial blockade.

On February 6, 1962, just 24 hours after the denounced genocidal policy against the Island came into force, the Treasury Department promulgated the Regulations for Cuban Imports, which prohibited the importation of all merchandise of Cuban origin. on US territory.

The objective was clear: to suffocate the Caribbean nation economically and starve the Cuban people, lacking the resources prohibited by Washington's policy towards the Cuban government. Close, block, prevent, harass Cuba. That was the goal and it still is more than 60 years after the imposition of the unilateral blockade.

In 1992, the Torricelli Law made the blockade an extraterritorial issue by sanctioning third nations, because the law prohibits US subsidiaries in third countries from trading goods with the Greater Antilles. Subsequently, the Helms-Burton Act intensified and further entrenched the hostile policy against the Cuban people.

Another of the laws elaborated to strengthen the economic, commercial and financial blockade against the Island is the Law for the Reform of Commercial Sanctions and Expansion of Exports of 2000, which prevents US citizens from traveling to Cuba as tourists, the only country he is banned from visiting.

The aforementioned Law of 2000 also prevents financing for US agricultural products to be sold to Cuba.

With the arrival to the US Presidency of tycoon Donald Trump, politics has intensified, while the tenant of the White House defends that he wants to "help" the Cuban people.

Recently, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla expressed that his government demands the end of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States on his country in February 1962.

The Cuban official stressed that "since 2019, the economic coercion measures have reached a qualitatively higher aggressiveness. Unconventional war measures, inappropriate in times of peace, are applied in the effort to deprive Cuba of fuel supplies."

The Cuban Foreign Ministry maintains that, in the context of Covid-19, the blockade reached "unsuspected limits of cruelty, by hindering solidarity donations, trying to hinder the development of Cuban vaccines and limiting the possibilities of accessing medicines and basic supplies ”.

It is estimated that since the imposition of the blockade to date, the damage caused by the US blockade measures against Cuba exceeds 144,413 million dollars at current prices, the statement specifies.

Rejected by the majority of the international community in the votes held annually in the United Nations Organization (UN), the US policy against Cuba is considered a violation of the principles of International Law, as it interferes in the internal affairs of the Island , and violates the principle of the independence of a nation and the human rights of Cubans.