Article based on the interview “Cuba has never stood idly by” granted by Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, to Ignacio Ramonet, Spanish professor and journalist, at the Palace of the Revolution.

FOR more than 60 years, Cuba has suffered the limitations and adversities derived from the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States. An unjust blockade, anachronistic as a policy, and designed to undermine the support of the Cuban people to the Revolution by economic asphyxiation, in order to return the country to a regime of economic colony of the US. However, Cuba has never stood idly by and has developed a capacity for creative resistance, managing to advance and grow as a nation.

In the last five years, the US blockage against Cuba has strengthened. This process has occurred in the midst of the health and economic crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the worsening of geopolitical tensions and conflicts at the international level. This has had a significant impact on the economic situation Cuba is experiencing today.

If we compare the life of the Cuban people until the second half of 2019, and how it has been afterwards, the impact of the strengthening of the blockade will become clearer. In 2019, Cuba was receiving income from exports; a significant amount of remittances; notable income from tourism – the country came to receive four and a half million tourists in one year – as well as credits from various financial institutions, governments and international programmes and agencies, which allowed the execution of various development projects. On the other hand, there was a stable fuel supply based on compensation agreements with friendly countries.

Under these conditions, foreign currency income was available to import raw materials for the main productive processes; to buy food to satisfy the basic food basket supply by the government, as well as other food and merchandise to supply the domestic market. Foreign currency was available to maintain a legal and stable exchange market. There was an acceptable level of capacity to settle financial obligations, and there was a payment capacity to obtain the most important spare parts and inputs for the economy. The inflation levels were low.

In summary, there was a certain situation of stability, without yet achieving the prosperity to which the country aspired, which made it possible to advance in the process of improving the economic-social system, based on the National Economic and Social Development Plan until 2030.

In the second half of 2019, the Trump administration implemented more than 240 measures that tightened the blockade against Cuba. With these measures, all sources of foreign currency income in the country were suddenly cut off. Tourism decreased notably, partly due to the closure of cruise ships. An enormous energy and financial persecution was organised which made it impossible to access funds and ways to obtain raw materials for the productive processes and the purchase of fuels. More than 92 banks or international financial entities were sanctioned or pressured by the US government to cease their relations with Cuba. The flow of remittances was also cut off.

This had a considerable impact on the destabilisation of the national electro-energy system, causing blackouts that affected the population and the industry.

In the first month of 2020, less than ten days before leaving the White House, Trump decided to include Cuba in the list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism. Suddenly, all banking agencies and financial institutions stopped lending to the country. This constituted a strong blow to the availability of foreign currency to honor financial payment commitments. It also prevented the development of economic activity with all the intensity commensurate with the country's installed capacity and necessary to maintain a stable supply of goods and services. A large imbalance was created between supply and demand, with the subsequent impact on price increases, resulting in high inflation.

It also caused a lack of foreign currency to operate a legal state exchange market in an efficient manner. This created an illegal market, which manipulates the exchange rate and becomes an element in the determination of prices, and contributes to the increase of inflation.

In this economic situation caused by the reinforcement of the blockade, Cuba has also suffered from the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the increase in prices on the international market, due to the multidimensional global crisis, and the effects of climate change, causing intense droughts, rains and severe hydro-meteorological events that have caused considerable damage to the economy.

This combined effect has created an environment of shortages of medicines, food and fuel in the country, with an impact on the social programmes of the Cuban Revolution and on the welfare of the population, where the blockade continues to be the main obstacle to the development of the country.

It should be noted that this intensified blockade has been sustained for more than four years. It began with the Trump administration and has remained the same during the Biden presidency, even in the midst of situations as complex as the pandemic. One example was the pressure exerted by the US government on various companies to prevent them from supplying oxygen to Cuba when the medical oxygen production plant in the country suffered damages.

Cuba has conveyed, through direct and indirect channels, to the current US administration its willingness to dialogue, on equal terms, without impositions and without conditions, on all issues that have to do with the relationship between the two countries. However, the current US administration has showed no will to change their projections towards Cuba, which distances the possibilities of having a civilised relationship between neighbours, where there could be cooperation, economic-commercial, scientific, cultural and in all areas of life, regardless of the ideological differences that exist between the two countries.

Cuba is convinced that it must overcome the blockade through its own efforts and capabilities, making use of the human talent they have developed in more than 60 years of Revolution.

They have made progress in increasing the use of renewable energy sources in the production of power, particularly photovoltaic solar energy, which will make it possible to reduce the country's dependence on hydrocarbon imports for power generation. Currently, the country has signed a group of agreements that will allow it to install more than 2,000 megawatts in photovoltaic solar parks in less than two years. In this way, a considerable volume of fuel will be available for the economy, in particular for food production.

The country is also taking steps to increase domestic crude oil production and the country's capacity to refine it, in order to obtain new commodities for export.

In this complex economic situation, important milestones were reached in the field of health and new achievements are being worked on. In the fight against COVID-19, Cuba maintained the humanist spirit of the Revolution. An important part of all the efforts and the little money that entered the country was allocated to save lives. Thanks to its scientists and its biopharmaceutical industry, Cuba was one of the few countries that was able to vaccinate its entire population with its own vaccines; an exceptional achievement for a country under blockade and with limited resources. In three months, it was able to develop its first vaccine candidate. Subsequently, it had five vaccine candidates, three of which became well-proven vaccines in terms of efficiency and efficacy. Cuba confirmed at that time that, despite all the difficulties, it was a health potency.

Cuba also maintained its historic international medical cooperation, sending medical brigades to more than 46 countries, including to the epicentre of the disease at that time.

Today, the country is also making important advances in the study of therapeutic solutions with biotechnological drugs and advanced techniques for diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, degenerative diseases and different types of cancer. At the same time, work is being done on an effective vaccine against all strains of dengue fever, which is at an advanced stage.

The Cuban struggle against the US blockade enjoys broad international support. Every year for the past three decades, Cuba has won a great victory in the United Nations General Assembly against this policy. With the exception of Israel and a few abstentions, the rest of the countries that make up the United Nations, more than 180 vote in favour of the Cuban resolution. However, the United States does not give in and does not lift the blockade, which proves its arrogance and contempt for the opinion of the rest of the world.

Every year the number of leaders of countries that speak out against the blockade at the United Nations General Assembly is increasing. In the last session where the issue was debated, 44 world leaders spoke out against the blockade. Likewise, every year it is becoming more common for countries, organisations, regional blocs and international institutions to issue resolutions against the blockade. At the same time, there are more acts of protest against this policy in the world. In 2023 alone, more than 2,000 demonstrations in support of Cuba were registered.