During his presidential campaign, Democratic candidate Joe Biden announced a review of Cuba policy. But the team that installed itself in the White House on January 20, 2021 subjected it to a “study phase” that was delayed and delayed over time, an expression, among other things, that the island was not a priority issue on its agenda. The protests that took place on July 11 in several Cuban cities unleashed a hardening of the rhetoric on the part of the executive, which keeps intact the concrete measures adopted by the Trump administration, including the embargo/blockade, which this year was once again condemned by an overwhelming majority of the international community at the UN.
The policy of regime change, one of the historical impediments in U.S. relations with Cuba, was once again installed in the administrative apparatus.
JANUARY
January 28. The White House announced that the Joe Biden administration would review the Cuba policy. According to a statement released by spokeswoman Jen Psaki, the plan was to unblock the policies of former President Donald Trump, who strengthened the economic embargo and re-entered the island on the list of countries that sponsor terrorism.
“Our Cuba policy is governed by two principles. First, support for democracy and human rights—that will be at the core of our efforts. Second is Americans, especially Cuban Americans, are the best ambassadors for freedom in Cuba. So we’ll review the Trump administration policies,” Psaki emphasized.
FEBRUARY
February 3. The Biden administration appointed a veteran of Cuban reality analysis as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Emily Mendrala.
The career of the new official includes having been director of Legislative Affairs of the National Security Council and special advisor to the coordinator of Cuban Affairs.
February 11. According to a declassified report, mismanagement and lack of coordination dominated President Trump’s administration’s response to the so-called sonic attacks at the U.S. embassy in Havana.
“An official was never appointed to have general responsibility,” underlines the report, prepared by a department of the State Department whose mission is to independently review any security incident in U.S. embassies around the world.
February 18. Since Joe Biden arrived at the White House, politicians and activists from the Cuban exile have been launching a series of proposals to the new president on the evolution of the ties between the United States and the island.
Several proposed a recovery of Barack Obama’s thaw policy. During his campaign, Biden advocated for the release of remittances and ties with Cuban citizens, as well as the reestablishment of consular and commercial ties permitted by U.S. law.
February 25. President Biden extended for another year the declaration of emergency with Cuba, which has been in force since 1996 after the shooting down of two light aircraft of the Cuban exile organization Brothers to the Rescue.
MARCH
March 1. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez invited the Biden administration to maintain respectful relations with his country and with the entire region based on sovereign equality, non-interference in internal affairs and the observance of independence and self-determination.
March 4. About 80 Democrats in the House of Representatives urged President Biden to repeal the “cruel” sanctions that former President Donald Trump imposed on Cuba when he dismantled Barack Obama’s policy.
March 9. The White House has no intention of reviewing the general policy towards Cuba, which emphasizes the promotion of human rights on the island. “It is not even one of our priorities,” said spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
“A Cuba policy shift is not currently among President Biden’s top priorities, but we are committed to making human rights a core pillar of our U.S. policy, and we’re committed to carefully reviewing policy decisions made in the prior administration, including the decision to designate Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism,” Psaki said at the press briefing.
March 16. Senator Bob Menéndez said the White House statements that Cuba was not a priority for the current administration was because the United States was concentrating on fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and other more pressing issues.
“We are facing the challenge of the global COVID-19 pandemic, that we are dealing with the issue of China — a threat to the interests of the United States and a power that we are going to have to confront — and that we continue with economic difficulties in the country. The president’s plan, which passed through the House and the Senate, is now being signed by him and it is important to rescue families in this country, their health and economically. Anyway, all those things have taken a priority,” he affirmed in an interview with the Miami channel America TV.
March 17. The Cuban Foreign Ministry denied having interfered or tried to do so in the last U.S. elections, after U.S. intelligence agencies published a report on alleged foreign interference in the electoral process.
“It is false that Cuba has interfered or tried to interfere in the U.S. elections,” Carlos Fernández de Cossío, director general for the United States of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX), wrote on his Twitter account.
March 30. The State Department released its annual report on the human rights situation in the world, whose section dedicated to Cuba has hardly changed at all compared to the last decades.
From Washington’s perspective, Havana continues violating the human, labor and religious rights of citizens. “The United States maintains the same standard for both its adversaries and allies. Respect for human rights is key to a good relationship and everyone is judged equally,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the press briefing launching the report.
APRIL
April 1. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel described as “unworthy, immoral and slanderous” the State Department’s annual report on the human rights situation, in which torture, extrajudicial executions and other problems are mentioned.
“They resort to the infamous rhetoric as always to slander a heroic island that suffers a criminal blockade imposed by the U.S. government, causing enormous damage to the Cuban people,” the president wrote on his Twitter account.
April 1. The European Union (EU) would be willing to mediate with the Biden administration for the United States to remove Cuba from its list of countries that sponsor terrorism, reported the Agencia Cubana de Noticias news agency.
April 12. Juan González, President Biden’s main adviser for Latin America, assured that the current president “is not Barack Obama in his policy towards Cuba,” ruling out a dialogue between Washington and the island.
“The political moment has changed in an important way, the political space has been closed a lot because the Cuban government has not responded in any way, and in fact the oppression against Cubans is even worse today than perhaps it was during the administration of [George W.] Bush (2001-2009),” he stated in an interview broadcast by CNN in Spanish.
April 22. A federal court in Washington DC authorized the U.S. oil company Exxon Mobil to continue its lawsuit against two Cuban companies for the nationalization of their properties at the dawn of the Revolution.
In May 2019, the U.S. company opened the first lawsuit against Cuban companies under the Helms-Burton Act.
Exxon Mobil seeks a 280 million compensation from the companies CIMEX and CUPET for the use of their former properties in Cuba.
MAY
May 2. A Cuban-American family, for more than a century dedicated to the sugar industry and whose properties were nationalized on the island in the 1960s, was sued in a Miami court for allegedly negotiating with the Cuban government to purchase and transfer to the Kingdom of a shipment of sugar, produced on another property that was also confiscated.
The brothers Alfonso and José Fanjul, owners of Florida Crystals, based in Palm Beach County, were sued by the Francisco Sugar Company, a company founded in 1899 in New Jersey. Its owners are also of Cuban origin and their arable lands in the Guayabal area, in eastern Cuba, were nationalized after the triumph of the revolution.
May 25. The United States accused Cuba of “not cooperating fully” with Washington in the fight against terrorism, a step that reinforces its legal basis for maintaining the island as a state sponsor of terrorism.
In an official communication in the Federal Register, Secretary of State Antony Blinken included Cuba, along with Iran, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela, on the list of countries that “do not cooperate” at all with Washington’s “anti-terrorist efforts.” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez wrote on his Twitter account: “the slander surprises and irritates.”
May 27. Cuba placed at more than 7 million dollars a month the economic losses that the U.S. financial and commercial embargo causes only in the field of information technology and communications.
Between April and December of last year, the damage to this sector amounted to 65.4 million dollars, according to calculations by the Ministry of Communications.
May 27. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) rejected Cuba’s inclusion on the list of countries that do not fully cooperate with anti-terrorism efforts, ratified by the U.S. State Department.
May 28. Two Cubans died and another ten disappeared after a boat on which they were sailing to the United States capsized off Key West, Florida. Eight others survived and were rescued, the Coast Guard said in a statement.
JUNE
June 3. The brothers José and Alfonso Fanjul scored a victory in the world of lawsuits for nationalizations on the island by getting a rival company to withdraw a lawsuit for the alleged use of a nationalized property to export sugar to the United Kingdom.
The Francisco Sugar Company accused the Fanjul conglomerate, ASR Group International INC, of having violated the Helms-Burton Act by buying cane sugar grown on the former lands of another company in 2016 and exporting that sugar from the Port of Guayabal, in eastern Cuba, to the ASR refinery in London.
The document specified that the Fanjul company “trafficked that sugar with full knowledge that Francisco’s sugar lands and the Port of Guayabal had been confiscated by the Cuban government in 1960.”
June 9. The United States Senate approved a financial compensation package for diplomats who have suffered from the so-called “Havana Syndrome,” a mysterious group of symptoms that first affected U.S. officials in Cuba in 2016, and later spread to China and to the capital itself, Washington DC.
June 17. The financial and commercial blockade that the United States imposes on Cuba caused 9.157 billion dollars’ worth of losses to the island between April 2019 and December 2020, according to a calculation announced by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez.
This is the highest figure published by the Cuban authorities, which each year disclose this data, by far exceeding the record of 5.570 billion dollars in 2019.
June 19. The fundraising campaign to send to Cuba millions of syringes so that its entire population can be vaccinated against COVID-19 has achieved an “incredible” reception and has already quadrupled its initial goal, said one of the heads of Global Health Partners (GHP).
The New York NGO, whose mission is to improve the health of children and families in Latin America, sought to raise $100,000, but in two months it has raised $400,000, which shows the “commitment of the people of the United States” to the Cuban people, said Bob Schwartz, its vice president.
June 23. The UN General Assembly spoke out, once again, on the need to end the blockade on Cuba with an overwhelming majority of the countries that comprise it. The result of the session showed 184 votes in favor of lifting the blockade against Cuba, three abstentions (Colombia, Ukraine and Brazil) and two votes against: the traditional ones from the United States and Israel.
June 23. A U.S. court dismissed a lawsuit filed by the heirs of a Cuban liquor company against the French multinational Pernod Ricard, which the plaintiffs accuse of taking advantage of assets that were confiscated on the island after the revolution in 1959.
Judge Kathleen William, of a court in the Southern District of Florida, alleged “lack of jurisdiction” in the lawsuit against the French company, which together with the Cuban government owns Havana Club International.
June 25. James McGovern, representative of the second congressional district of Massachusetts in the United States Congress, spoke out in favor of normalizing relations between his country and Cuba when speaking at the 18th Ernest Hemingway International Colloquium.
Through the Streaming Cuba platform, the congressman said: “we have to resolve our differences in good faith, as neighbors, end the embargo to promote collaboration between our nations in matters of mutual interest.”
June 26. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez accused the United States of “breaching” the agreement to deliver 20,000 annual visas to Cubans, which, in his opinion, “encourages” irregular immigration to the northern country.
The 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act and the reinforced economic blockade also promote “unsafe, irregular and disorderly immigration,” the Cuban foreign minister said on Twitter.
The statement came amid an increase in the number of rafters trying to reach the Florida coast from Cuba, which is going through its worst economic crisis in three decades, with serious problems of shortages of food and basic products.
June 27. Cuban-American teacher Carlos Lazo began a walk from Miami to Washington DC with the intention of asking President Joe Biden to lift the sanctions against Cuba.
“We want to tell our president that it is time to lift the sanctions that weigh on the Cuban family; that it is time that in the face of hatred and intolerance, generosity and humanity be extended to a people that, in the midst of a pandemic, is resisting an economic siege,” he said in a message on his official website.
June 29. During an interview in Rome with journalist Lucia Doraccio, Secretary of State Antony Blinken answered questions related to foreign policy problems, from Russia to China, from the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Asked about Cuba, Blinken said that during its first six months the Biden administration had been focused on “revitalizing our relationships with our partners and allies, like Italy, re-engaging in multilateral institutions – rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, re-engaging with the World Health Organization, convening a summit of leaders on climate. And then, of course, we’ve had the G7, which has made very important progress with all of our countries working together…. A very strong and important agenda, both bilaterally with our closest partners and multilaterally in these international organizations.”
JULY
July 1. The United States government kept Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and China on its “black list” of countries that “do not do enough to combat human trafficking,” and warned of problems in countries such as Israel or Saudi Arabia.
The list, out of a total of 17 countries, is completed with: Afghanistan, Algeria, Myanmar, Comoros, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Iran, North Korea, Malaysia, Russia, South Sudan, Syria and Turkmenistan.
On Cuba, the report highlighted the “government pattern of taking advantage of worker export programs with strong signs of forced labor, particularly in its program of medical missions abroad.” It is an argument of the Donald Trump administration, repeatedly refuted by Havana, which defends the “humanistic and solidary” value of its health collaborations and affirms that these accusations are part of a campaign of discredit and lies against the island’s medical cooperation.
July 12. President Joe Biden expressed his support for the protests that took place on Sunday, July 11, in various cities on the island.
“We support the Cuban people and their clamor for freedom and for relief from the tragic control of the pandemic and the decades of repression and economic suffering to which it has been subjected by the authoritarian regime in Cuba. The Cuban people are courageously asserting fundamental and universal rights. Those rights, including the right to peaceful protest and the right to freely determine their own future, must be respected. The United States calls on the Cuban regime to listen to its people and attend to their needs in this vital moment instead of enriching themselves.”
July 12. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it was a “grave mistake” to accuse the United States of being behind the protests in Cuba. They are the “reflection,” he said, of a people “deeply tired” and of “the mismanagement and repression” of the Cuban authorities.
Blinken made these statements in response to those of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, according to which mercenaries paid by the U.S. government were in charge of organizing the protests.
President Joe Biden also reacted to the issue on two occasions: first with a statement in which he claimed that the demonstrations were “a call for freedom.” And then with statements to the press at the White House. “We ask the government of Cuba to avoid violence in its attempt to silence the voices of the Cuban people,” he said.
July 13. The United States Coast Guard reminded a group of exiles in Miami that they cannot travel by sea to Cuba. “Don’t take to the seas,” Coast Guard Rear Admiral Eric Jones said in a statement published in various media. The official also indicated: “the transit is dangerous and unforgiving,” especially in this hurricane season.
July 14. Miami Mayor Francis Suárez proposed that the United States carry out a military bombing of Cuba to “help” the population that is demonstrating in the streets.
In an interview with Fox News, Suárez recalled that the United States has bombed other countries such as Kosovo and Panama, has a history in that regard and should now do the same on the Caribbean island.
Later, however, he said: “I never suggested a bombing of Cuba. What I have been saying is that for the first time in decades we are seeing the Cuban people in the streets demanding freedom. We have a moral duty to support them. And that means the United States needs to intervene. It is a matter of national security for us.”
July 14. The president of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob Menéndez, assured that Washington has no intention of intervening militarily on the island. “We are not going to have a military intervention in Cuba. No administration has done it, neither Republican nor the most anti-communist. Nobody has considered that, so we are going to put that aside because that is what the Fidelistas want, those who maintain power in Cuba want to promote that…there will be no military intervention,” he said.
July 14. The White House assured that it continues to “review” its policy towards Cuba and that any modification will seek to “encourage a change in behavior” of the Cuban government, in addition to taking into account the protests on the island.
“We continue to review our policy toward Cuba, looking at its impact on the political and economic well-being of the Cuban people,” said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki. The spokeswoman added: “There is no doubt that the protests over the weekend and what happened in recent days have been significant events…and that will obviously have an impact” on the decision that the United States makes about how to proceed with Cuba.
July 14. Congresswoman Barbara Lee issued a public statement on the protests in Cuba: “I support the right of the Cuban people to peacefully protest without interference from the Cuban government. The United States should move swiftly to provide humanitarian relief to address the needs of the Cuban people.”
The text read: “Specifically, the United States should immediately permit remittances and financial transactions from relatives, food, and vaccination assistance, including the delivery of syringes, to the Cuban people.”
She also reiterated her appeal to the Biden administration to take “urgent action to reverse the misguided and failed policies of the Trump administration, which have only served to hurt the Cuban people.”
July 15. Black Lives Matter (BLM) demanded the end of the embargo against Cuba. According to a message sent to President Joe Biden, preventing trade between the two countries is cruel and inhumane. “The embargo was instituted with the explicit intention of destabilizing the country and undermining the right of Cubans to choose their own government,” they wrote.
July 16. The Democratic representative for New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called on the United States to end an “absurdly cruel” embargo against Cuba. “We see Cubans rise up and protest for their rights like never before. We stand in solidarity with them and condemn the undemocratic actions led by President Díaz-Canel,” she said in a statement.
“Last month, once again, the UN voted overwhelmingly to ask the United States to lift its embargo on Cuba. The embargo is absurdly cruel and as in many other U.S. policies against Latin Americans, cruelty is the point.”
July 17. The Biden administration’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Juan González said that the protests in Cuba are “a reaction to 62 years of communism” and “to the Cuban regime’s failure.” “In Cuba we are facing a communist dictatorship, and they use the threat of the United States as an excuse to oppress the people,” he said on the Oscar Haza program on Mega TV, Miami.
July 19. President Joe Biden announced that the State and Treasury departments began the process of reviewing the number of U.S. diplomats in Havana and increasing the amount of remittances from Cuban-Americans to their families on the island.
July 21. President Joe Biden intends to impose “strong sanctions” on Cuban officials he considers responsible for the repression of protests on the island, said a State Department official.
July 22. The Biden administration presented a package of sanctions to punish those it perceives to be responsible for the repression of protests in Cuba, which includes placing them on a blacklist of Cuban officials and institutions.
In a statement, the president said that he “unequivocally condemn the mass detentions and sham trials that are unjustly sentencing to prison those who dared to speak out in an effort to intimidate and threaten the Cuban people into silence. The Cuban people have the same right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly as all people. The United States stands with the brave Cubans who have taken to the streets to oppose 62 years of repression under a communist regime.”
For this reason, he said, “my Administration is imposing new sanctions targeting elements of the Cuban regime responsible for this crackdown—the head of the Cuban military and the division of the Cuban Ministry of the Interior driving the crackdown—to hold them accountable for their actions. This is just the beginning–the United States will continue to sanction individuals responsible for oppression of the Cuban people.” The presidential statement emphasized that “our support for the Cuban people is unwavering” and the certainty that they are making sure “Cuban Americans are a vital partner in our efforts to provide relief to suffering people on the island.”
“López Miera and the Special National Brigade have participated in the repression of protests, even through physical violence and intimidation. We take this measure in accordance with Executive Order 13818, which is based on and implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act,” said the statement signed by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
July 23. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla highlighted the publication in the U.S. newspaper The New York Times of a letter signed by more than 400 personalities calling for an end to the sanctions against Cuba.
July 23. Cuba received a donation of 1.7 million syringes sent from the United States by humanitarian and solidarity organizations.
July 26. Cuban protesters gathered in front of the White House to ask President Biden for stronger and immediate action on the island. Many of the participants arrived outside the executive mansion after starting the trip from Florida.
Republican politicians participated, including representatives Mario Díaz-Balart, María Elvira Salazar, Carlos Giménez, Dan Crenshaw, Nicole Malliotakis, Michael McCaul, Michael Waltz and Victoria Spartz.
President Biden, who called Cuba a “failed state,” has been criticized by sectors in exile for not doing enough to push for regime change.
July 29. The United States Coast Guard repatriated 14 Cuban immigrants who had tried to reach the country illegally in a precarious boat and were intercepted off the coast of the Bahamas, the institution reported.
July 30. President Biden announced more sanctions on Cuban officials for the crackdown on the July 11 demonstrations. He made it known before receiving a group of Cuban-American politicians and community leaders at the White House to hear their opinions on the situation on the island.
The Treasury Department announced the inclusion of the two main officials of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR), as well as the police force as a whole, in the list of sanctions against Cuban authorities.
The Treasury Department statement said: “Since the beginning of the July 2021 protests in Cuba, the Cuban regime deployed the PNR, a police unit under the Cuban MININT, to suppress and attack protesters. Led by Director Oscar Callejas Valcárcel and Deputy Director Eddy Sierra Arias, the PNR was photographed confronting and arresting protesters in Havana, including the Movement of July 11 Mothers, a group founded to organize families of the imprisoned and disappeared.”
Therefore, “the PNR is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13818 for being owned or controlled by, or for acting or purporting to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, MININT. MININT was previously designated by OFAC pursuant to E.O. 13818 on January 15, 2021 for being a foreign person who is responsible for or complicit in, or having directly or indirectly engaged in, serious human rights abuse.”
July 30. The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment (MINCEX) authorized the registration and granted the corresponding license to the American company Fuego Enterprises Inc. in the National Registry of Foreign Trade Representations, attached to the Chamber of Commerce of the island. It was the first authorization of this nature given to a company owned by a Cuban American, in this case businessman Hugo Cancio, president and CEO of Fuego Enterprises Inc. and founder of OnCuba.
July 31. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez expressed his rejection of the sanctions imposed by the U.S. government on two high-ranking officers of the Cuban National Revolutionary Police (PNR) for their role in the repression of the citizen protests of July 11. “I strongly reject the inclusion of the Revolutionary National Police and its two main leaders on spurious U.S. lists,” he said in a message on Twitter.
AUGUST
August 1. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez reiterated his rejection of the United States sanctions against two officers of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) and a military unit for their alleged role in the repression of the July 11 anti-government demonstrations. He described as “opportunistic” the Treasury Department’s measures against the head of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR), Pedro Martínez, and his peer in the MININT, Romárico Sotomayor.
August 3. The Honduran-American Ricardo Zúñiga was appointed undersecretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs of the State Department. He will hold this post on an interim basis pending Brian Nichols being confirmed in that position by the Senate.
The diplomat worked at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana as First Secretary for Economic Affairs. He later became part of the team that promoted changes in U.S. policy towards Cuba under Barack Obama.
August 10. Cuban scientists sent an open letter to the president of the United States in response to his pronouncements about the island and its COVID-19 vaccination campaign. Biden said he was “willing to administer significant amounts of vaccines [to Cuba] if an international organization administered them and did so in a way that the average citizen would have access to those vaccines.”
“These are completely misinformed pronouncements that are aimed at distorting the reality of what is happening in our country,” said Mayda Mauri, first vice president of the BioCubaFarma business group.
August 11. The United States Senate approved an amendment asking the Biden administration to facilitate free access to the Internet in Cuba by creating a fund that enables this “open and uncensored” service. It was presented by Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, and asked to establish a reserve fund to “facilitate the provision of Internet service to the citizens of Cuba, who have been deprived of the free flow of information by the illegitimate Cuban communist regime.”
August 13. The United States imposed sanctions on two high-ranking officers of the Cuban Ministry of the Interior and the military body popularly known as “red berets” for their alleged role in the repression of the July 11 anti-government protests.
“We will continue sanctioning those who facilitate that the Cuban government perpetuates human rights abuses against peaceful protesters,” Andrea Gacki, director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), said in a statement.
The Treasury sanctioned the head of the political department of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) of Cuba, Pedro Orlando Martínez Fernández, and alongside him in the Ministry of the Interior (under which the PNR depends), Romarico Vidal Sotomayor García.
In addition, it imposed restrictions on the “red berets,” a unit of the Revolutionary Armed Forces that, according to the Treasury, was deployed in response to the protests and that “in one case was involved in a violent struggle with a protester.”
August 16. The Biden government authorized emergency flights to Cuba, lifting a ban that was implemented last year. The permit was granted to two small Florida airlines and covers flights without passengers to Havana and other Cuban cities.
August 19. The United States government sanctioned three senior Cuban military and security officers. The Treasury Department reported in a statement that those sanctioned are the second chief of the General Staff of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR), General Roberto Legrá; the head of the Central Army, Division General Andrés Laureano González; and Abelardo Jiménez, head of the Department of Penitentiary Establishments of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT).
August 20. The United States Coast Guard repatriated 19 Cuban immigrants who were detained in four maritime interceptions near the Florida Keys.
August 21. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez affirmed that the suspension of the compensation mechanism for payments in the Spanish market for the state airline Cubana de Aviación was a “practical effect” of the economic embargo applied by the United States to the island.
The measure notified by the International Air Transportation Agency (IATA) to the island’s main airline company “affects the Cuban company and places it at a disadvantage compared to other airlines,” he added.
IATA reported in a statement sent to travel agencies that Cubana de Aviación no longer participates in Spain’s Bank Settlement Plam (BSP) payment compensation mechanism and asked them to “withdraw all amounts related to Cubana de Aviación from their next payments to the BSP.”
August 23. Forces of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) captured a speedboat from the United States driven by a Cuban citizen who was preparing to pick up a group of people at a point on the coast east of Havana.
August 26. The United States Coast Guard repatriated 24 Cuban immigrants who were trying to reach the country in a “suspicious vessel” intercepted off the coast of the Bahamas. The interception took place near Elbow Cay, when a Coast Guard plane spotted a suspicious vessel and notified one of the surveillance boats of its location.
SEPTEMBER
September 21. During his first speech before the UN General Assembly, President Biden affirmed that he supports the protesters and activists who, in his opinion, keep democracy “alive” in countries like Cuba and Venezuela.
His words provoked a quick reaction from the Cuban government. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said that the president “lacks moral authority” to promote initiatives in favor of peace, and criticized him for “dividing the world between those who submit to him and those who defend their sovereign right to self-determination with dignity.”
September 22. The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill that provides additional monetary support for U.S. diplomats and intelligence agents who allegedly suffered from mysterious health incidents known as the “Havana Syndrome.” U.S. media and politicians are considering the possibility that these episodes are attacks by hostile intelligence services, but neither the government nor the investigators have reached a conclusion about what the cause is and who could be responsible.
September 27. The Cuban National Institute of Sports (INDER) blamed the United States government for the defection of six baseball players from its selection to the U-23 World Championship in Mexico.
“The annulment of the agreement between the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB) and the MLB prevents realizing dreams by natural means, enabled for the rest of the countries, and stimulates the trafficking of athletes in defense of political interests, unrelated to the welfare and tranquility of the Cuban family,” INDER said.
The Cuban sports authorities allege that the evasions of their players are a consequence of the cancellation by the Trump administration of the pact that had been reached in December 2018 between the Cuban Baseball Federation and Major League Baseball (MLB).
The agreement between the FCB and the MLB was negotiated over three years and sought to offer a “safe” way for the island’s players so that they could be inserted under contracts in the 30 American professional teams without losing their residence in their country of origin.
OCTOBER
October 5. Thousands of Cubans demanded on social media the reopening of consular services at the United States embassy in Havana, paralyzed in 2017 by then-President Donald Trump.
Washington reduced activity at the Embassy and its staff and diverted consular services to third countries due to mysterious health incidents that affected a group of its diplomats and the cause of which is still unknown. That is why the bilateral agreements for the granting of visas to Cuban citizens and the family reunification program are practically paralyzed. Cubans have to leave Cuba to do the paperwork, which is now carried out in Mexico or Guyana.
October 10. President Joe Biden signed a law that grants alleged victims of the so-called “Havana Syndrome” federal assistance to defray their medical expenses.
October 22. The U.S. Coast Guard repatriated 32 Cuban immigrants and arrested a suspect of human trafficking.
October 22. The United States government has warned that it will respond, possibly with sanctions, if the “fundamental rights” of the Cuban people are “violated” or the promoters of the opposition civic march called for November 15 in Cuba are prosecuted. This was said by Juan González, President Biden’s main adviser for Latin America, after the Cuban Prosecutor’s Office warned that those responsible for the call would be charged. “Those individuals who are involved in violating the fundamental and universal rights of the Cuban people, is something to which we have made very clear that we have every intention of responding to,” he stressed. “Threatening peaceful protesters shows that one has lost the will and support of the people,” he stressed.
October 22. Several leaders of the World Council of Churches (WCC) sent a letter to President Biden urging him to make the “bold decision” to lift the financial and trade embargo on Cuba. “We ask you to make a bold decision and end the embargo against the Cuban people. We are aware that there are very important political pressures and obstacles to this course of action,” they said. They also requested the withdrawal of Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, the suspension of the application of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act and to resume “people-to-people” trips.
October 23. President Miguel Díaz-Canel described the attitude of the U.S. government as “arrogant” when it warned that it would apply sanctions if his government prosecutes the organizers of the peaceful march of November 15, classified as illegal.
October 29. President Joe Biden, “thanked the Vatican for speaking on behalf of those unjustly detained in Venezuela and Cuba,” he said in a White House statement about the president’s meeting with Pope Francis.
NOVEMBER
November 5. The National Assembly of People’s Power rejected a resolution from the United States Congress in support of the anti-government protests in July. The International Relations Commission of the Cuban Parliament described the initiative approved by the U.S. House of Representative as “interventionist” and “damaging to sovereignty” and affirmed that it is aimed at “supporting the unconventional war that its government is carrying out against our country.”
It also accused Washington of “creating and promoting political-communication campaigns with which they flood digital networks to distort our reality, try to provoke destabilization, appear ungovernable, promote chaos and impose a soft blow to put an end to the socialist Revolution. and its conquests.”
November 7. Jake Sullivan, national security adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden, considered that “circumstances changed” in policy towards Cuba after the July 11 protests and, therefore, the United States was reconsidering its options.
Sullivan made those remarks during an interview on CNN with journalist Fareed Zakaria, who asked him about Biden’s electoral promise to restart the thaw with Cuba, something that he has not fulfilled and which is opposed by the more conservative electorate. Sullivan said the president’s decisions are not guided by electoral politics.
“On Cuba, things changed a bit this year. In July we saw substantial protests, the most significant in a long time. And we saw a brutal repression by the Government that continues to this day. while sentences continue to be handed down against some of those protesters, “said the adviser to the U.S. president. Therefore, circumstances have changed and that requires the president to evaluate what is the best way to go forward and support the Cuban people,” he added.
November 9. The U.S. government, through State Department spokesman Ned Price, once again warned that Cuba could receive new sanctions “if the repression and human rights abuses do not stop.”
November 10. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla reiterated his government’s complaints against the United States, which he accused of implementing a “destabilizing campaign” to provoke a social outbreak on the island.
It is, he said, “an operation that is organized from a material and practical point of view, fundamentally from U.S. territory, which connects with violent groups with past and present of terrorist actions against our people,” with the aim of “building, based on lies and unreality, a non-existent virtual scenario in the hope of turning it into a real scenario.”
November 28. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez criticized U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who regretted that the Cuban government “silences” artists on the anniversary of the peaceful protest of November 27. “The State Department would do well to observe the strong young people’s demonstration in support of the Revolution today, November 27,” Rodríguez wrote on Twitter, referring to the thousands of young people who marched to commemorate the shooting of eight medical students on that day in 1871.
November 30. The State Department announced the imposition of visa restrictions on nine Cuban officials for trying to “silence the voices of the Cuban people” through “repression and unjust detentions” in the face of the call for the frustrated opposition march on November 15.
The statement, signed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, indicated that among those sanctioned there are “high-ranking officials” from the Ministry of the Interior and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba, but their identity is not specified.
He also stressed that the Cuban authorities “revoked journalists’ credentials to suppress freedom of the press” — referring to the credentials of five correspondents of the Spanish agency itself, of which two have been restored so far — and “arbitrarily detained Cuban citizens who attempted to peacefully protest.”
November 30. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla rejected on his Twitter account the new measures announced by the United States against nine Cuban officials.
DECEMBER
December 2. American Airlines resumed daily Miami-Havana flights. The cost of the ticket would exceed $1,000 due to the end of the year demand. The airline has also arranged new rates for luggage.
December 6. Democrat Patrick Leahy (D-VT) delivered a speech in the Senate condemning the White House policy toward Cuba. “As someone who has observed the evolution of relations between the United States and Cuba for nearly 50 years…, I find the situation between our two countries today bewildering, tragic, and exasperating,” said the 81-year-old senator.
Leahy said that six decades of sanctions, isolation and threats had not achieved any strategic objective for the United States. “This administration’s policy, so far, has been dictated by a tiny but vocal constituency in this country that has always opposed U.S. engagement with Cuba,” he continued. “They have done this for decades, but that policy, as history has shown, is doomed.”
December 7. Seven Cubans between the ages of 24 and 40 were found in a Coral Gables (Miami-Dade) park. The Cubans said they were from Havana and had sailed seven days on a boat built by them before arriving at Matheson Hammock Park, located in one of the most exclusive residential areas of Miami-Dade County.
December 16. Some one hundred Democratic congressmen sent a letter to President Joe Biden in which they ask for the reestablishment of a dialogue with Cuba, address humanitarian needs and advance in the normalization of relations with Havana, deeply affected by the restrictive measures of former President Donald Trump to the Barack Obama’s thaw policy.
“The current humanitarian situation in Cuba is growing ever direr, with shortages of food and goods and decreasing access to medical supplies amid the COVID-19 pandemic. We urge you to take immediate humanitarian actions – as the United Nations has urged repeatedly – to suspend U.S. regulations that prevent food, medicine, and other humanitarian assistance from reaching the Cuban people,” a total of 114 members of Congress asked Biden.
December 17. President Biden continues to review the decision of his predecessor, Donald Trump, whose administration returned Cuba to the list of state sponsors of terrorism after it was taken out in 2015 during the “thaw” phase of bilateral relations.
“What I can say is that the policy on Cuba and that designation is still under review,” the acting coordinator of the State Department for terrorism, John Godfrey, said in a press teleconference.
The State Department published its 2020 annual report on terrorism, which guides Congress in determining the foreign aid granted to each country.
December 19. Activists against the U.S. embargo on Cuba began a walk to the Vatican that advocates for the end of this policy towards the island and for peace in the world. The initiative, named “A path of love,” is being promoted by the project “Bridges of Love” and the Agency for Cultural and Economic Exchange with Cuba, among other organizations in solidarity with the island.
December 22. The Cuban government has rejected Washington’s statements about its alleged role in human trafficking.
Dec. 24. The United States Coast Guard has repatriated 39 Cuban rafters detained during various interceptions while traveling on fragile boats off the Florida Keys, authorities announced. The crew of the Coast Guard Raymond Evan repatriated the 39 immigrants after detaining them “due to concerns for the safety of life at sea,” they said in a statement.
Author
OnCuba Staff
