- Cuba lost more than 150 billion dollars due to the US blockade
Havana, Apr 25 (Prensa Latina) Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez denounced the exclusion of the island from the preparations for the Summit of the Americas, and the negotiation of a document on health that ignores the Latin American reality.
In an appearance before the national and foreign press, the Minister of Foreign Affairs stressed that Washington deceives public opinion about the invitations to that meeting scheduled for the city of Los Angeles next June.
According to Rodríguez, the United States also exerts extreme pressure on many countries in the region that oppose this exclusion.
Can someone come up with something more undemocratic? asked the head of Cuban diplomacy.
«A main axis of the event will be health, I must inform in this sense that it is negotiated in an opaque way with many neoliberal elements and with many shortcomings with respect to the real needs of the people, a plan of action on health and resilience of the Americas until the year 2030,” he said.
The foreign minister stressed that these agreements are sustained with the exclusion of Cuba and other member states of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) that participate in these processes.
“Cuba in a modest, but altruistic and persistent way, has provided international cooperation in health matters recognized worldwide,” he pointed out.
The headline recalled the support for the health of the Caribbean nation in many countries in the region and the world, including the United States, despite Washington’s international smear campaign.
Rodríguez also rejected the negotiation of a document on migration, behind the backs of international public opinion, which seeks to force Latin American states to repress migration and acquit the migrants that the United States rejects, with a racist and xenophobic vision.
On the other hand, the diplomat pointed out that the damage caused by the United States to Cuba during more than 60 years of economic, commercial and financial blockade totals 150 thousand 410 million dollars.
He explained that such losses amount to one billion 326 thousand 432 million dollars when the depreciation of the dollar is taken into account against the value of gold in the international market.
He stressed that there are more than 12 million dollars a day and more than 365 million dollars a month to the detriment of a small and underdeveloped economy like Cuba’s.
Rodríguez said that this has an impact on families and is one of the causes of emigration from the island, fundamentally economic.
At the same time, he denounced that the United States applies a selective and discriminatory immigration policy towards Cubans.
