Cuba is facing the Trump administration’s toughest sanctions amid an economic crisis. The regime responds with a mass march and call for mobilization against the US.
Cuba on Friday described the new sanctions imposed by US President Donald Trump as “collective punishment”. The participants of the May Day parade gathered in front of the US Embassy in Havana and declared that they will “defend our motherland”. TASR informs about it according to the report of the AFP agency.
On Friday, Trump signed an executive order imposing new US sanctions against Cuba. Their target is a wide range of people in the island country and they will also target foreign banks that will cooperate with them. These are the latest measures by the Trump administration as part of pressure on Cuba, which is experiencing an economic crisis after the US stopped the supply of oil from Venezuela. He said later Friday in Florida that the US aircraft carrier could “stop on the way back from Iran” about 90 meters off the coast of Cuba.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez condemned the latest “illegal” sanctions. “We strongly reject the recent unilateral coercive action taken by the United States government,” he wrote on the social network X. “These actions demonstrate the intention to once again impose collective punishment on the Cuban people,” he said.
He called for mobilization
Trump announced these sanctions at a time when Cuba was celebrating May Day. Crowds of people marched to the US embassy under the slogan “Defend the Motherland”. The march was led by President Miguel Díaz-Canel and former President Raúl Castro.
On Thursday, Díaz-Canel called on Cubans to mobilize “against the genocidal blockade and gross imperial threats against our country,” referring to US sanctions and rhetoric, according to AFP.
During the rally, officials said they had collected more than six million signatures of Cubans “for the homeland and peace” in the past six weeks. Opponents, however, questioned the manner in which these signatures were collected. On Friday, state television broadcast footage showing thousands of people in other Cuban cities.
