Cuba rejects new U.S. State Department measure against financial entity

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez rejected the inclusion of Banco Financiero Internacional on the so-called Cuba Restricted List on Friday.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs stated on Twitter that this new punitive measure of the State Department intensifies the economic, commercial and financial blockade with which the governments of that power have failed, for 62 years, in the attempt to destroy the Cuban Revolution.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo informed in a statement this Friday that the provision will become effective in early January after the publication of the updated version of the list that penalizes entities allegedly under the control of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces.

This unilateral action is in addition to other Washington's sanctions to strangle the island's economy and force a regime change.

Last December 30, Rodríguez denounced Pompeo's pretensions to include the island in the list of countries that sponsor terrorism.

According to specialists, this would limit the possibilities of the president-elect, Joe Biden, to reverse the current U.S. president, Donald Trump, in matters of foreign policy.

In repudiating this action, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel described it as unilateral, absurd, hypocritical, and unjust. He pointed out that the government of that northern country hosts criminal groups that act against this West Indian nation.

In recent years, Cuba denounced the long history of acts of terrorism committed by the United States against its territory and Washington's collaboration with individuals and organizations involved in these activities.

After the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House in 2017, the United States applied around 200 new punitive measures to the blockade policy against the island.