Cuba Buys Oil Tanker to Circumvent US Sanctions
HAVANA TIMES – The Cuban government has resorted to buying a ship carrying fuel after its owner refused to dock on the island for fear of incurring US sanctions, Cuba’s transport minister said Wednesday, reported dpa news.
“We have reached the point of having to buy a ship in the immediate vicinity of our shores… because the shipowner has refused to dock,” Transportation Minister Eduardo Rodriguez told state television.
US President Donald Trump has imposed a string of sanctions to pressure the Caribbean island to stop supporting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom it wants to oust from office. This has led to a drop in fuel imports.
Rodriguez did not give details on the origin of the vessel, saying only that the Cuban government was forced to buy it with “the limited financial resources available to the country.”
Another company had cancelled a contract to buy two planes from state-owned airline Cubana Airlines for fear of liability under the so-called Helms-Burton Act, the minister said.
The act, passed by former US president Bill Clinton in 1996 and reactivated by Trump last year, enables suits to be filed in US courts for those accused of “trafficking” with Cuban state-owned confiscated assets.
Why do you fail to apply the same principles to American Indians and African Americans? Surely THEIR lands were stolen they were violently subjected to brutally beyond belief. You would never call American Agribusiness or Landlords “thieves” would you? Yet any Land reform benefitting Cuban peasants and paving the way for widespread mechanisation of the sugar Industry – “Sin Azucar No Hay Pais” – which YOUR REGIME failed to do. Listen how does a Monoculture economy achieve Long-Term Structural Change and technical progress if it fails to mechanise its historically important industry? Can you actually answer such questions because Cuba had serious problems your regime never addressed such as the declining US Preferential market for Cuban sugar as it incorporated sugar imports from new sources in the 1950s such as The Phillippines??
You exiles need to answer ONE question : Why did you fail to restructure a Monoculture economy that faced 30 years of stagnation despite directives from the World Bk [1952] and UK Board of Trade [1954]? Further to that why did you fail to mechanise the sugar Industry the ONLY sector you had? You left the country with prolonged stagnation your ONLY industry based on slave labour 25% unemployment dire social horrors and 370,000 Professional cane cutters who toiled for 5 months p.a!! Why did you do NOTHING about these dire problems, did Batista even care? By the way Cuba successfully mechanised the entire sugar sector keeping unemployment to 2-3% AND built a swathe of new industrial and medical sectors by 1990-1 and The collapse of COMECON which robbed the most progressive country in the region of 80% of its foreign trade. Also you have no problem with Wahabbism and Saudi Arabia and supporting ISIS do you??
Attention! If The US is so “helpful” to poorer countries then why are there MILLIONS streaming illegally into the US every month or at least attempting to? These Capitalist no hopers have absolutely no excuse ziltch yet Cuba had to face both illegal extraterratorial sanctions, the loss of 80% of its foreign trade PLUS discriminatory immigration policies [wet foot/dry foot] wherein any “refugee” making it to US shores received automatic residence a PRIVILEGE not granted to those departing all the Capitalist no hopers of which there are many!!. In any case the exiles need to respond to why if Cuba is so hopeless [tell that to Nelson Mandela who the exiles hated!!!] why do you need to impose criminal illegal sanctions against Cuba yet you support Saudi Arabia and those terrorist supporting countries?? I’m confused I mean I have never heard Cuba mentioned as women suppressors, ISIS/Caliphate supporters etc BUT I know even Ms Clinton named the Gulf dictatorships which the US and West fully SUPPORT, as total backers of The Caliphate and Terrorist Mercenaries.
Joe Biden will call out Trump for: (1) not doing enough to help the Cuban people economically; (2) unintentionally putting the livelihoods of Venezuelans and Cubans at risk by secondary means by attempting to block Venezuelan oil tankers from sending oil to Cuba; (3) shutting down the consular section of the US Embassy in Havana; (4) scaring away non-US businesses by enacting Title III just for the purpose of pleasing early generation Cuban exiles who had their property taken away.
If either Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, or Mike Bloomberg wins the Super Tuesday primaries, and one of them secures the Democratic presidential nomination, and one of them wins this year’s election, then Biden will order Title III de-activated and portions of Helms-Burton redacted, and he will order all Trump-era sanctions on Cuba lifted.
castro was a thief, amurderer, and the biggest liar to the cuban population. i have traveled to cuba four times
just to see what the “glorious” socialist revolution was like. they still have rolling blackouts, ration cards, poor health care, they produce less sugar today then they did in the batista era. visited the town milton hershey built there in 1917. sad to see how socialism destroyed a 1st world nation and turned it into a begger on the street of the world for handouts. communism does not work unless you put so much fear into the population that they will never challenge anything. thank God mr trump stopped cruise ships and tourists, because until castro pays for the porperty his dictatorship stole, you cannot deal in stolen property. how about paying exxon, texaco, shell for its oil refineries, pay for the land stolen, the utilities stolen, the hotels, the homes, the sugar centrals, the property owned by shareholders both cuban and international. CASTRO WAS A THIEF, AND A MURDERER! and a political candidate like bernie sanders praises a murdering, lying, communist like fidel castro!
I don’t think I’ve ever read anything saying exactly what, specifically, would Cuba have to change in order to meet our US standards for being a ‘good’ country, and for us to end the blockade? I don’t think I’ve ever seen this spelled out. Free elections? Two or more political parties? Those are a start, but then where do we stop? Do we then start dictating their laws, and their constitution? I am of course in favor of better lives for Cubans, better conditions, more money flowing through the country to the people. I think we are all in favor of those things. In all the arguments on this website about the blockade and its impacts, and who’s at fault for the sad conditions in Cuba, is it just lifting the blockade that everyone wants? If so, what does the US claim to be asking in return for lifting the blockade? It seems we would have to be prescribing a lot of things that one nation should not be able to prescribe for another. It’s easy to say a country should be more free or democratic, but that is vague, and I am not aware of any universally accepted standard that makes a country ‘free’ or ‘good’. Yes, better and more free is obviously good for the Cuban people. I am not surprised that Cuba has never offered to meet the US in the middle with some concessions–making an offer of some kind to see the blockade lifted–but I am surprised that they haven’t tried to make it look like they’ve tried.
I have travelled to Cuba many times and find it amazing what they have achieved despite the military actions and cruel embargo imposed on them by the US.
In terms of people power it is more democratic than the US. It cares for all its citizens regardless of race, creed or religion.
Despite their lack of a tax base to speak of the citizens have better health care and educational opportunities than those of their near northern neighbour. Finally the rest of the free World agrees with me as every year at the United Nations only 2 countries on the planet vote to maintain this cruel embargo, that being the US and surprise surprise their Jewish lapdog Israel. Viva Cuba.
Is Cuba still getting discount oil from Venezuela, then reselling it at the world market price?
P.S. Clinton did not “pass” Helms-Burton. In the US, laws are passed by Congress.
But it’s ok to trade with dictators like China, North Korea but this tiny little island is deemed a threat…pathetic…
Olga, if you had even half a brain, you would realize that our approach to Cuba hasn’t worked in over 60 years and only hurts the Cuban people. The Trump administration could care less that innocent people are starving. When there is an administration that is hostile to Cuba, repression there increases because they have to be on guard against the Evil Empire. After Obama’s opening, repression become much less. I know. I was there and Cubans on the island were very comfortable giving their opinions and agreed things have become much more relaxed.
Scant resources indeed. The money empire is powerful world wide.
Curt you calls ppl like me and millions in exile mafia despicable because we want democracy for Cuba. Of course you live in democracy and enjoy everything that democracy has to offer but you want to deny that to Cubans. Maybe your are afraid that cheap sex would be over after the Castro’s kingdom collapses.
Good, I hope Trump tightens the sanctions until this horrible dictatorship collapses, the worst and longest regime in Latin America has to go. Democracy for Cubans now after 61 years, nothing functions 3 millions Cubans in exile, thousands killed by firing squad or at the bottom of the Atlantic trying to escape and so on. Basta! Enough
This is really pathetic. Russia and China give much more aid to Venezuela than Cuba and we don’t sanction them nearly as much as Cuba. Trump is such a moron that he thinks by sanctioning Cuba will get rid of Maduro. He doesn’t even realize that he is getting very bad advise from Scumarquito Rubio and others in the Miami Cuban Mafia. Those people are nothing but creatures of the worst kind who care nothing at all about the Cuban people.