The campaign of the Democratic candidate for the United States general elections, Joe Biden, criticized this Wednesday the recent President Donald Trump's sanctions on sending remittances to Cuba, which will lead to the closure of 407 branches of the Western Union company on the Island.
Christian Ulvert, strategic advisor of the campaign for Florida, referred in a statement to the consequences of the measure on the population and stressed that Trump's policy towards the Caribbean nation is a failure.
“Trump's war on family remittances is a cruel distraction from his government's failure to promote democracy in Cuba,” Ulvert said.
“Western Union is the largest remittance service on the Island. Its closure will be painful for Cuban families, especially the oldest and most vulnerable, both on the Island and in our country,” he added.
“In the midst of a global pandemic in which families are suffering deeply on the Island and around the world, President Trump is denying Cuban Americans the right to help their families,” he added.
“The president's supposed support for the people of Cuba is nothing more than empty rhetoric. Cuba is no closer to democracy than four years ago. "Americans and Cubans alike cannot afford four more years of Trump's weak leadership, his empty words and broken promises," he concluded.
Last Tuesday the Cuban company FINCIMEX announced the next closure of 407 Western Union branches on the Island. The decision was made after the North American Government announced the suspension, as of November 27, of sending remittances through companies controlled by the regime's military.
“The inclusion of FINCIMEX on the list of restricted entities of the US State Department last June, and the modifications announced by the Treasury Department to the regulations for the control of Cuban assets on Friday, October 23, "They will prevent remittances to Cuba through US companies with general licenses, thereby directly harming the Cuban people and their families in the US," the entity said in a statement.
Among the North American firms included in the restrictions is Western Union, the largest issuer of remittances from that country to Cuba, with more than 502 offices distributed throughout the country. This company has had a contract since 1999 with the Cuban FINCIMEX, finance company of the CIMEX corporation that is controlled by the military corporation GAESA.
Remittances from abroad constitute the second source of income for the battered Cuban economy, with 3.5 billion dollars each year.
According to the document issued by FINCIMEX, this new sanction also blocks the negotiations that "have been going on for months to launch the remittance service to bank accounts in MLC."
The Trump Administration's provision was issued by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The text prohibits “any transaction involving entities or sub-entities identified in the Cuban Restricted List (CRL).”
The CRL, known as the State Department's blacklist, lists more than 220 Cuban entities that cannot negotiate with citizens or companies under US jurisdiction, due to their links to the complex. GAESA, led by Brigadier General Luis Alberto Rodriguez Lopez-Calleja, former son-in-law of Raúl Castro, and included on the list of people blocked by the Treasury Department.
What do you think?
SEE COMMENTS (3)Filed in: