US economic sanctions against Cuba in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic
Raúl Rodríguez Rodríguez [1]
On March 12, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. The global crisis unleashed by the spread of the virus across the planet has had dramatic consequences for all states within the international system. This crisis has tested the capacity of states to guarantee the health of their citizens. Beyond a health emergency, the pandemic and its effects must be understood as a social and political phenomenon.
Cuba has been quite successful in controlling the pandemic. From the first confirmed case in early March until the first week of October, the island nation of 11,5 million people had a total of 5.780 confirmed cases and 123 deaths, a recovery rate of nearly 88% of all total cases, and a mortality rate of 2,2% of all total cases.
These positive results have been possible in part because access to healthcare is universal and provided by the state. Cuba has nine doctors per 9 inhabitants, one of the highest rates in the world. The island's healthcare system is well known for its focus on prevention, community-oriented healthcare, and preparedness to combat epidemics and natural disasters, even beyond its borders. Cuba's successful response to the disease is also due to the long-standing development of its biotechnology industry, which has allowed it to develop considerable expertise and produce medicines to support its healthcare system.
Internationally, Cuba has responded to requests for collaboration on the Covid-19 virus from more than 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as in Europe and the Middle East. Within Cuba, Covid-19 containment has been achieved through a series of policies that were implemented rapidly. International tourism was suspended and borders were closed on March 24, 2020; medical students and social workers were deployed door-to-door throughout the country to check on those exhibiting symptoms; and neighborhood doctors closely monitored their patients.
Multilateral Organizations, the calls for solidarity and cooperation
On Friday, March 27, during his participation in a virtual summit of G20 leaders, UN Secretary-General António Guterres advocated for the lifting of economic sanctions against the countries subject to them, to help them cope with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Later that same month, a UN human rights expert called for the immediate lifting of international sanctions to prevent hunger crises in countries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. “ The continued imposition of crippling economic sanctions on Syria, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba and, to a lesser extent, Zimbabwe, to name the most prominent cases, seriously undermines the fundamental right of ordinary citizens to sufficient and adequate food ,” said Hilal Elver, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. He went on to emphasize that “it is now a matter of urgent humanitarian and practical necessity to lift unilateral economic sanctions immediately.”
Two months later, in May, as Covid-19 spread to every corner of the world, the World Health Organization called for unity and solidarity, intensified cooperation and collaboration at all levels to contain, control and mitigate the pandemic.
At the beginning of October, a new papal encyclical was published in which the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church called for solidarity and brotherhood and acknowledged that "the market alone does not solve everything, even though they want us to believe this neoliberal dogma of faith once again."
US sanctions against Cuba during the Covid-19 pandemic
It is evident that the United States government is paying little attention to calls for solidarity from multilateral organizations to ease sanctions against Cuba in the context of the fight against COVID-19. On the contrary, the US administration has continued to tighten punitive measures against Cuba, impacting the Cuban economy as a whole and making it increasingly difficult to find trading partners and conduct financial transactions, which places an additional burden on the provision of healthcare services. At a time when all the efforts of the Cuban state and its healthcare system are focused on containing the pandemic and protecting its citizens, the US government has intensified the system of economic sanctions.
These economic policy instruments, which began to be implemented in the early 1960s, have evolved into a comprehensive economic and financial blockade against Cuba. The system of economic sanctions against Cuba remains in effect in 2020; these sanctions employ and include all methods available to a sanctioning state: control of trade relations, suspension of aid and technical assistance, freezing of the sanctioned state's financial assets, and the inclusion of foreign companies involved in trade with Cuba on blacklists. This is particularly detrimental during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since June 2017, less than 6 months after assuming the Presidency, the Trump administration had raised economic sanctions to unprecedented levels in terms of their "extraterritoriality", mainly from the entry into force of title III of the Helms Burton act, which implies a more direct interference in Cuba's trade relations with third countries.
The Trump administration's tightening of economic sanctions against Cuba is explicitly aimed at crippling the Cuban state's finances, targeting areas of strength in the Cuban economy, such as tourism and the export of professional services, while exploiting its vulnerabilities, such as the need to attract foreign direct investment and its energy dependence. All of this has impacted Cuba's economic performance and the standard of living for all Cubans.
Although sales of medicines and medical equipment to Cuba are authorized by the U.S. Treasury Department, major U.S. drug manufacturers, in practice, do not export their products to Cuba.
Several factors are preventing US pharmaceutical companies from taking advantage of this opportunity. A constantly changing web of US government regulations makes them difficult to interpret. Furthermore, the numerous requirements for obtaining a license to export to Cuba result in a lengthy and complex application process. Consequently, there are considerable delays, and even receiving final authorization is uncertain. In this context, US government agencies often actively discourage companies from applying for licenses.
Finally, one must consider the lengthy application process and the costs of complying with the regulations, along with the risk of severe penalties if the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) determines that the license applicant has committed any violation, even unintentionally.
Since early March, Cuba has been grappling with the economic and social impact of COVID-19 despite the economic and financial blockade imposed by the United States. International organizations have intensified their calls for global solidarity and the easing of sanctions. In April 2020, the U.S. government hinted at a willingness to be more flexible in granting licenses for medical exports. However, United Nations human rights experts have pointed out that U.S. economic sanctions continue to necessitate a complex licensing process for the export and re-export of goods to Cuba, undermining the efficiency of purchasing medicines, medical equipment, and technology, as issuing licenses or granting exemptions can take several months at best. The Office of Foreign Assets Control, which provides guidance on humanitarian exemptions for Cuba, has neither streamlined nor modified these cumbersome procedures. As UN human rights experts have noted, “donations of medicines and medical equipment of US origin to Cuba, such as testing kits and respiratory devices, require a specific license, which is very time-consuming. Furthermore, the licensing process involves onerous end-user verification requirements for the export of medical supplies, instruments, and equipment.” In the Cuban case, an explicit distinction is made between the Cuban government and the Cuban people; in a fully public healthcare system with universal access, it is virtually impossible to deliver medicines or medical equipment to the Cuban people without the involvement of an institution within the Cuban Ministry of Public Health.
Cuba faces Covid-19, sanctions continue to increase, and blacklists keep growing.
In addition to restrictions on authorized exports, financial blacklists affect Cuba's economy and healthcare system. Under the Trump administration, the list of restricted individuals from Cuba has been frequently expanded.
U.S. companies, as well as many non-U.S. companies and individuals, are subject to severe sanctions for conducting business with any of these entities. In June, for example, OFAC blacklisted the Cuban financial institution Fincimex, which serves as an intermediary for family remittances to Cuba, a vital source of income for the country. As a result of the listing, the French bank Crédit Mutuel suspended services to Fincimex, thus disrupting the flow of remittances to Cuba.
At the same time, OFAC expanded its list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) and continued to target the Cuban banking system by adding the London-based Havana International Bank, Ltd. The blacklisting of Cuban state-owned enterprises puts pressure on the overall financial situation of the Cuban state. The state budget must allocate resources for imports in all sectors. By impacting overall state revenue, this directly affects its ability to purchase the medicines and equipment needed to address the current health emergency.
The extraterritoriality of US sanctions is evident.
US sanctions affect not only Cuban citizens but also entities in third countries seeking to do business with Cuba. In 1992 and 1996, the Torricelli Act and the Helms-Burton Act expanded the extraterritorial reach of the sanctions, in part by asserting their authority over the foreign subsidiaries of US companies.
In March 2020, a shipment of Covid-19 aid from Asia’s richest man, Jack Ma, was blocked due to the extraterritorial reach of U.S. sanctions. On March 21, 2020, Ma’s foundation announced it had sent masks, ventilators, gloves, and diagnostic kits to 24 Latin American countries, including Cuba. However, the selected cargo carrier, Colombia-based Avianca, refused to transport the aid to Cuba because Synergy Aerospace Corp. (“Synergy”), a majority shareholder, is incorporated in Delaware and therefore subject to U.S. law. Avianca had suspended passenger service to Havana in January 2020 for the same reason.
In April 2020, two Swiss-based companies, IMT Medical AG and Acutronic Medical Systems AG, refused to sell ventilators to Cuba, citing US trade, financial, and economic sanctions. Both companies had been acquired by the US-based Vyaire Medical Inc. and immediately suspended business relations with Cuba. PostFinance Switzerland recently suspended all money transfers to Cuba, thus preventing Swiss associations from collaborating with Cuban medical entities. Both Medicuba-Switzerland and the Swiss-Cuba Association reported that banks such as UBS, Credit Suisse, ZKB, ABS, and Migros Bank have blocked the transfer of donations intended to support the emergency aid project for the shipment of medical supplies, diagnostic reagents, and personal protective equipment for healthcare workers.
Attempts to undermine Cuba's international prestige and sources of funding
Cuban medical missions abroad are a source of international prestige for the island due to the highly humanitarian and humanistic nature of the work carried out by Cuban healthcare personnel in more than 50 countries worldwide. Additionally, in some cases, this work generates revenue to finance the universal healthcare system for Cuban citizens.
In response to the pandemic, Cuba provided international assistance by sending more than 3.500 medical professionals to over 25 countries in 2020. In this context, the U.S. State Department has included Cuba on a list of nations that do not cooperate in the fight against human trafficking, and considers the doctors who participate in missions to countries facing the COVID-19 pandemic to be victims of human trafficking. Furthermore, a bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate, the “Cuban Regime Benefits Reduction Act of 2020,” aimed at impacting Cuba’s medical mission program.
The bill, if passed, would require the U.S. State Department to publish a list of nations that contract with the Cuban government for medical services and would consider this a factor in including those nations in the Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. This would open the door to greater extraterritoriality of U.S. legislation, in the form of secondary sanctions and other measures against any country on that list. While Cuba has promoted cooperation through its medical internationalism to help with the pandemic in other countries, U.S. sanctions have also been aimed at hindering those activities.
As part of its attempts to discredit Cuban medical collaboration, the Trump administration has promoted a frontal attack against multilateralism and tried to manipulate the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) as an extension of its aggression against Cuba . In September 2020, under the threat of withholding the financial contribution due from the United States as the organization's largest contributor, the PAHO Secretariat was forced to accept what they call an "external review" of PAHO's role in the Mais Médicos (More Doctors) program in Brazil, with the intention of discrediting the work of Cuban doctors in that country between 2013 and 2018.
The United States government continued adding sanctions to the list in September 2020. Just days after the Secretary-General of the United Nations and a significant number of statesmen made repeated calls for the lifting of sanctions and for solidarity among states in the international system to mitigate the economic and social impact of the Covid-19 pandemic within the framework of the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly, the US government, undeterred, insists on punishing Cuba.
The latest measures specifically target the Cuban tourism sector, already severely impacted by border closures implemented to contain the spread of the pandemic. Following the implementation of this ban on U.S. citizens and persons under U.S. jurisdiction staying in hotels owned by Cuban state-owned enterprises, a total of 430 facilities were added to a blacklist. Another measure is the elimination of licenses or authorizations for U.S. citizens to participate in or organize scientific conferences, seminars, exhibitions, sporting events, and cultural events. This measure also limits the number of U.S. travelers to Cuba and affects scientific, cultural, and sporting relations that are not only mutually beneficial to citizens and institutions of both countries but have also served as an example of respectful and productive relations between Cuba and the United States. This is particularly significant at a time when scientific collaboration and information sharing are essential to confronting a pandemic affecting all states within the international system.
Finally, the United States government has again tried to limit the entry of remittances to Cuba by including the company American International Services (AIS), which facilitates the sending of these remittances, on a list of prohibited entities.
It is undeniable that the increased sanctions policy aims to bankrupt the Cuban state. In the case of Cuba, a socialist state where state participation in economic processes is fundamental to guaranteeing aspects of social justice such as universal access to healthcare and education, this has consequences that affect the population as a whole. This is especially relevant at a time when the Cuban state has fully assumed the responsibility for confronting the Covid-19 pandemic, both economically and institutionally, with the primary objective of healing, saving, and protecting its citizens.
[1] Center for Hemispheric and United States Studies, University of Havana. Member of the CLACSO Working Group on U.S. Studies.
If you would like to receive more information about CLACSO's training programs:
[widget id=”custom_html-57″]
to our email lists.
