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A
Cuban official said they have received no indication
of Obama's administration changing U.S. policy
towards Cuba
Despite the international and
domestic pressure for the U.S government to end the
embargo towards Cuba, there is no sign that Obama's
administration will change the policy, a Cuban
official said on Wednesday.
Josefina Vidal, Chief of U.S.
Branch in Cuba's Foreign Ministry said that there is
no answer to Cuba's request to end the embargo.
“The philosophy of punishment
goes on,” said Vidal to journalists in La Habana.
Since 1962 U.S. has maintain the
embargo, which forbids U.S. companies to trade with
Cuba, producing shortage of products and goods in
the country.
The blockade “has created a
situation that has become more severe resulting in
greater hardship for the Cuban people," Jonathan
Quiroz from Cuba's Commerce Department said on a
press conference on Wednesday.
U.S. foreign policy experts
including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
have advocated an end the blockade.
In 2004, then-senator Obama said
it was time for the U.S. to end the embargo on Cuba,
saying that it had “failed to provide the source of
raising standards of living and it has squeezed the
innocents in Cuba."
However, during his presidential
campaign in 2008, Obama changed his mind and said
that, even if his administration would try ease the
blockade, he would not lift it.
Each year the embargo has to be
renew by the U.S. President, which Obama did in
September.
U.S. policy toward Cuba has long
been influenced by domestic U.S. politics in
Florida, where Cuban exiles have historically
opposed any conciliation with Cuba's government.
The island is the only country
left in the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 which
restricts trade with “hostile” countries. In 2008,
U.S. then-president George W. Bush lifted the
restrictions on trade with North Korea.
The United Nations has voted for
ending the embargo for 22 straight years. In 2013,
188 out of 193 countries voted for U.S. lifting the
blockade. Three countries abstain from voting, and
only U.S. and Israel voted against it. The next vote
is set for later this month. (Taken from TeleSur)
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