Editorial | CARICOM’s aid to Cuba

Donald Trump’s latest sanctions against Cuba have rightly drawn questions about the status of the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM’s) plan to provide humanitarian assistance to their regional neighbour.

People are concerned in the face of what Bruno Rodriguez, the island’s foreign minister, correctly labelled as “collective punishment” of the Cuban people.    

It has been more than a month since CARICOM announced it was coordinating with Mexico to send critical, non-sanctioned provisions to Cuba, and the disclosure by a handful of community members of amounts they pledged to the programme. But since then, little has been publicly said about the initiative, including whether any of the aid had actually left Mexico.

Notably Kingston, which has sparred with Havana over the Holness administration’s decision to end its agreement for Cuban doctors, nurses and medical technicians to work in Jamaica, wasn’t among the CARICOM members named as committing funds to the aid project.  Neither has the Jamaican government disclosed if, or how, it is proceeding on the plan.

The United States has maintained a broad economic embargo on Cuba for more than six-and-a-half decades, since the triumph of Fidel Castro’s Marxist revolution. 

After a period of a softening tensions between Washington and Havana during the Obama and Biden presidencies, Mr Trump has severely re-tightened the screws since the start of his second presidency over a year ago.  His administration sought to undermine the Cuban medical programme, claiming that the doctors and nurses sent to work abroad were the subject of human trafficking. He spoke of the possibility of visa sanctions against people who engaged them.  

Then earlier this year it imposed an oil blockade against Cuba, preventing ships with crude or petroleum products reaching the country, bringing the Cuban economy to a limp. Widespread power blackouts have silenced factories or slowed their output. Vehicles and machinery that run on petrol are either parked or used sparingly.

The energy crisis has had knock-on impacts on the availability of basic goods and services to Cubans, which was the context in which CARICOM leaders, at a February summit, agreed to send humanitarian aid to Cuba.

In late March, CARICOM’s chairman, the St Kitts and Nevis prime minister, Terrance Drew, said that the community was coordinating with Mexico to provide “items, such as powdered milk, including baby formula; non-perishables, such as beans, wheat flour, rice, and canned goods; basic medical supplies, solar panels, batteries, and water tanks”.  

Apparently, CARICOM would provide the money for the purchase of these products in Mexico, which would be transported to Cuba on Mexican vessels.  So far, St Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, and St Vincent and the Grenadines have publicly committed US$1.3 million to the initiative, although it is not clear how much of this has been released. Nor is it clear how other members intended to approach the matter.

However, Mr Trump’s new sanction, via an executive order on Friday, came even as Cuba acknowledged it was negotiating with the United States. They severely deepen the crisis in the Cuban economy. 

The sanctions will block the assets of “foreign persons” in the United States, or are in the control of the US entities, if the foreign persons “operate in or have operated in the energy, defence and related material, metals and mining, financial services, or security sector of the Cuban economy, or any other sector of the Cuban economy, as may be determined by the secretary of the treasury, in consultation with the secretary of state”.  The sanctions also apply to people deemed to have abused human rights in Cuba.

Not only are the application of these sanctions potentially sweeping, but analysts say they remove protection from companies that had meticulously separated their business with Cuba from association with the United States.

The Americans want Cuba to dismantle its socialist system, implement a market economy, hold open elections and compensate Americans for property lost during the revolution.  Mr Trump has talked of soon “taking over” Cuba and stationing US warships around the island on their way back from his war in the Middle East against Iran.

But, there must be a moral line between pursuing ideological and political aspirations and a policy of effectively starving ordinary Cubans.   CARICOM may not wish to confront or directly chide or rebuke the United States for its Cuban actions. It can, however, to the extent of its means, provide assistance to the Cuban people. 

And the citizens of CARICOM, and those of its respective members, should know.