Protesters in Minneapolis demand that the Biden administration take immediate action to reverse the actions taken by the Trump administration to deepen the economic war against Cuba. (Michael Siluk / Education Images / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Havana, June 30 (RHC)-- Cuba has already vaccinated about 2 million of its 11 million people and hopes to have 70 percent of the population vaccinated by August. Yet, because of the 60-year US embargo, which punishes civilians during a pandemic, the country is facing a shortage of millions of syringes.
US actor, film director, and political activist Danny Glover made this assertion in an article he published in The Nation on Tuesday.
In the text, under the title Biden’s Failure to End Trump’s War on Cuba Is Threatening Lives, Glover recalled that the US economic warfare on the island makes it extremely difficult for it to acquire medicine, equipment, and supplies from vendors or transportation companies that do business in or with the United States.
“Syringes are in short supply internationally, so no company wants to be bogged down navigating the complicated banking and licensing demands the US government places on transactions with Cuba,” Glover said.
If human rights are a core pillar of US policy, as a White House spokesperson recently declared, then the embargo must end. It is a policy that indiscriminately targets and harms civilians. It is a systematic violation of human rights on a massive scale, noted Glover in his article.
“If he truly wants to show global leadership, Biden should reverse a policy that isolates the United States, not merely Cuba. Instead of following Trump’s belligerent path, he should return to Obama’s path-breaking efforts towards normalization. He should applaud and facilitate Cuba’s pledge to produce 100 million doses of its vaccines, which it will share with the world. As the pandemic continues to ravage the Global South, the world needs the United States’ cooperation with Cuba, not confrontation,” stressed US actor Danny Glover.
