Cuba marks six decades under unilateral blockade

HAVANA－Cuba on Monday marked 60 years under an economic blockade by the United States that has deeply affected the island nation's fortunes and shows no signs of being lifted.

Decreed by US president John F.Kennedy on Feb 3, 1962, the embargo on all bilateral trade came into effect four days later.

The sanctions remain in place six decades later and Cuban authorities said they caused a loss of $150 billion.

Cuba is experiencing an economic crisis, with the COVID-19 pandemic dealing a hefty blow to a key source of income－tourism.

The message "the embargo is a virus too" has been spreading for months, with people organizing caravans of cars, bikes and motorcycles to crisscross the country denouncing the sanctions.

Carlos Gutierrez, a Cuban American and former US secretary of commerce, said the embargo has proved to be "counterproductive".

Cuba has looked to some foreign countries for support.

Two weeks ago, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin discussed strategic partnership over a phone call.

And Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Riabkov said Moscow would not rule out military deployment to Cuba－just a few hundred kilometers from Miami－if tensions with Washington over former Soviet state Ukraine escalated.

For some, such posturing recalls the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis between the US and the then Soviet Union, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear warfare and was a major motivation for the blockade against Cuba.

The US blockade started out as a "strategic and military instrument "in the context of war, said political scientist Rafael Hernandez.

But although the Cold War is over, it is still the US' "geopolitical interests" that determine its stance toward Cuba, he said.

US domestic politics also play a role, with the vote of a large and vocal anti-Havana Cuban expat community holding the potential to swing battleground states such as Florida.

Though sanctions were somewhat relaxed under a brief period of detente under Barack Obama, they were strengthened by Donald Trump, who added 243 new measures.

US President Joe Biden has done nothing to relieve the blockade, but instead announced new measures, despite campaign promises.

Agencies Via Xinhua