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Blockade Impacts on Foreign Trade
Policy of Strangulation Damages Third Parties
Granma International Editorial, October 14, 2010

None of those people who brandish against the system chosen by the Cuban people the argument of an underdeveloped economy, with limitations or conditions on traveling the desired road toward sustainable development, ever mention the stumbling blocks which the United States government has put in place to hinder Cuba's journey toward well-being.

In terms of foreign trade alone, from April 2009 to March 2010, the Cuban business sector recorded losses of $155.5 million derived from the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed on the island for more than 50 years.

Some of those losses are related to the impossibility of direct access to the U.S. market. That obliges us to find intermediaries or consider options in distant markets, logically increasing the price of products.

For this reason the CONSUMIMPORT enterprise, which imports products for the health, education and recreation sectors, suffered losses of $1.9 million, given that it had no alternative but to purchase from third countries or intermediaries.

Previously, the enterprise had applied to U.S. subsidiary companies producing electric devices, sports items and office supplies, to which it sent requisitions but received no response. These included Cooper Wiring Devices, Office Furniture USA and UCS. Inc.

Likewise, not having favored nation trade status, or stock in New York, Cuba was unable to participate in U.S. imports of crude sugar which, according to the Economic Research Service of that country's Department of Agriculture, reached 3.082 million metric tons in the period analyzed. Taking into consideration current production and export volumes, the country lost $49 million in this export line.

Similarly, the Cuban Drinks and Beverages Union had turn to the European market to buy barrels used to age rum, for which it had to pay an additional $284,700.

And, the ban on selling Cuban drinks to the U.S. market, especially of the leading Havana Club brand, translated into losing sales of at least 2.2 million cases of rum, worth approximately $87.3 million.

The need to turn to other currencies for commercial exchange, given the prohibition on using the dollar, has also led to an increase in costs resulting from rates of exchange and their variations.

The many negative effects of the blockade on Cuban foreign trade further include higher finance costs due to its category as a so-called risk country.

In this context, and due to banking, financial services and payment structures, the Cuban ALIMPORT food imports enterprise, has been affected to the sum of $102.9 million.

That total would have allowed us to buy, at average 2008 prices, 337 million tons of wheat, 451,000 tons of corn or 109,000 tons of chicken.

The U.S. measures, aimed at blocking the island's entry into international markets and at frustrating its import trade, do not only affect Cuban interests.

Limiting Cuba's market participation with other world economies also infringes the sovereign right of every nation to have commercial exchange with whichever countries they wish to; it despotically prohibits the opportunity to find in Cuba consuming and producing enterprises that might be of interest to them.

The U.S. attacks on our country at the foreign trade level are just one small aspect of the policy of strangulating the Cuban Revolution, a policy which, over more than 50 years, has been unable to achieve is maximum objective of bringing us to our knees.