Top US lawmaker vows to keep embargo on Cuba
Congress will keep a decades-old embargo on Cuba, the top Republican in the US House of Representatives vowed Tuesday, despite recent moves by President Barack Obama to ease sanctions against Havana.
“I fully intend to maintain our embargo on #Cuba,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a tweet.
Obama issued an executive order last week that further loosened restrictions on trade with Cuba, nearly two years after Washington began the process of rapprochement with its former foe.
The embargo remains a major holdover from decades of Cold War enmity between the two neighbouring nations.
But Ryan, the top lawmaker in the Republican-led House, insisted in a longer statement that he would resist “the Obama administration''s unilateral move to lift trade restrictions on Cuba.”
“The Castros continue to jail pro-democracy activists at a rate of hundreds per month, yet it is full steam ahead for the Obama administration''s efforts to appease this oppressive regime,” he said, referring to the government of longtime revolutionaries Fidel Castro and his brother Raul, the current president.
Put in place in the early 1960s, the trade embargo was designed to starve Fidel Castro''s regime of US currency.
Despite the mid-2015 restoration of diplomatic relations between Washington and Havana, the embargo remains largely in place today.
Ryan said President Castro has made little progress in improving the lot of the Cuban people, despite better economic prospects as a result of the thaw with Washington.
“As the past two years of normalizing relations have only emboldened the regime at the expense of the Cuban people, I fully intend to maintain our embargo on Cuba,” the lawmaker said.
NAMPA/AFP
“I fully intend to maintain our embargo on #Cuba,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a tweet.
Obama issued an executive order last week that further loosened restrictions on trade with Cuba, nearly two years after Washington began the process of rapprochement with its former foe.
The embargo remains a major holdover from decades of Cold War enmity between the two neighbouring nations.
But Ryan, the top lawmaker in the Republican-led House, insisted in a longer statement that he would resist “the Obama administration''s unilateral move to lift trade restrictions on Cuba.”
“The Castros continue to jail pro-democracy activists at a rate of hundreds per month, yet it is full steam ahead for the Obama administration''s efforts to appease this oppressive regime,” he said, referring to the government of longtime revolutionaries Fidel Castro and his brother Raul, the current president.
Put in place in the early 1960s, the trade embargo was designed to starve Fidel Castro''s regime of US currency.
Despite the mid-2015 restoration of diplomatic relations between Washington and Havana, the embargo remains largely in place today.
Ryan said President Castro has made little progress in improving the lot of the Cuban people, despite better economic prospects as a result of the thaw with Washington.
“As the past two years of normalizing relations have only emboldened the regime at the expense of the Cuban people, I fully intend to maintain our embargo on Cuba,” the lawmaker said.
NAMPA/AFP
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