Nova Scotia Cuba Association

 

What could Cuba have done if the blockade hadn't existed?

Yesterday, the Cuban Foreign Minister presented to the national and international press the report on the damage caused by this policy from March 2024 to February 2025

Author: Elizabeth Naranjo | internet@granma.cu

Author: Wennys Díaz Ballaga | internet@granma.cu

september 18, 2025

"It is impossible to express in numbers, in figures, the emotional damage, anguish, suffering, and deprivation that the blockade inflicts on Cuban families. This has been the case for several generations; more than 80% of Cubans were born after the blockade began," denounced Cuban Political Bureau member and Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla.
The consequences of this policy are dramatically evident in the hardships our population faces, he emphasized while presenting to the national and international press the resolution of the project entitled "Necessity of ending the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba," which the United Nations General Assembly will consider on October 28 and 29.
This meant that the damage at this stage amounts to more than $7.556 billion, which, compared to the report for the previous period, increased by 49%, due to the intensification of measures to stifle the country's economy.
He also emphasized that this is compounded by the immigration policy driven by the United States government, which has accentuated migration flows from Cuba. Objectively, this has resulted in the loss of qualified personnel and the workforce in our country, estimated at $2.57 billion.
The Cuban Foreign Minister reported that the accumulated damage over more than six decades of the blockade amounts to $170.677 billion, which "at the gold price, to avoid dollar fluctuations at the Central Bank, is equivalent to $2.103 trillion."
"What could Cuba have done, beyond all the good things it has done in these 60 years, with that exorbitant figure, for a small economy like ours?" Rodríguez Parrilla asked.
"It's an extraordinary figure for any economy in the world, not just an island and developing one like ours. Had there been no blockade, Cuba's Gross Domestic Product would have grown 9.2% last year, one of the highest growth rates in the hemisphere," he emphasized.
He insisted that the blockade constitutes the main obstacle to our health system's ability to obtain equipment, spare parts, and supplies, with a direct impact on the deterioration of several indicators.
In this regard, he argued that the island cannot normally access advanced US-made technologies and medicines.
He added that the White House is tasked with persecuting Cuban international medical collaboration, aiming to deprive us of legitimate interests based on cooperation models that meet the standards of South-South Cooperation and the United Nations and that, as a rule, do not involve revenue for our country, but rather represent a collaborative effort with low-income families in remote locations.
Regarding persecution, he mentioned the harassment, through sanctions and threats of retaliation, of transactions to Cuba from third countries, which resulted in 40 foreign banks refusing to carry out transactions and 140 bank transfers being rejected, just as is the case with the persecution of fuel supplies.
He reiterated that the damages and losses from the blockade in the communications and IT sectors directly affected, in the case of Etecsa, a figure of $73 million, as well as a progressive deterioration in passenger transportation capacity due to the lack of access to spare parts.
"The politically motivated measures announced by the United States in May 2024, supposedly to benefit the non-state sector of the economy through digital and financial services, have never materialized," the Minister explained.
He reaffirmed that the most severe measures implemented in recent months alone include:
Cuba's reinstatement to the fraudulent and slanderous arbitrary list of countries that supposedly sponsor terrorism.
The impossibility of filing lawsuits in United States courts in violation of international law and the sovereignty of a third State, in United States courts, pursuant to Title III of the Helms-Burton Act.
The imposition of the new presidential memorandum number five, dated July 30, by the U.S. President, to reinforce the policy of maximum economic pressure as a criminal, illegal, and genocidal instrument, in order to achieve objectives of domination, in harmony with the declared purpose of generating regime change and destroying the Cuban constitutional order.
The United States "ignores the overwhelming disdain toward this policy felt by public opinion, its citizens, its voters, its taxpayers, Cubans living abroad, and the international community," he stated.
In 2024, more than 2,000 public events and documents, declarations, resolutions, and more than 1,700 statements were issued against the blockade and Cuba's inclusion on the infamous list.
In October of that same year, the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, an independent body of United Nations experts, recognized the impact of the blockade and the list on the enjoyment of freedom by women and girls in Cuba.
"Although the blockade creates hardship, scarcity, and suffering for all our families, it does not and will never achieve its purpose of bringing our people to their knees and making us renounce the current Constitution... It will not make us renounce our Revolution or socialism. The Cuban people have given ample proof of their capacity for resilience, creativity, and determination.
"The Cuban economy, even when faced with the worst scenarios of additional blockade measures in the past, has had and will have the capacity to find solutions and accelerate its recovery, based on the awareness of our people, with majority consensus, and an understanding of the causes," he reaffirmed.
On the international front, he denounced the military deployment of the United States government in the Caribbean, aimed at the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and its constitutional and legitimate president, Nicolás Maduro Moros. He warned that such a situation also threatens Cuba and all of the Americas and is inconsistent with the concept of regional peace and security.
The Cuban Foreign Minister stated that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, anti-Cuban congressmen, and other far-right U.S. politicians are betraying their country's national interests and the will of their constituents, including those of Latin American and Caribbean immigrants, and are seeking to generate war in our region. 
He urged the international community to mobilize in defense of international law and the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter, as well as the UN General Assembly and the Security Council to fulfill their obligations and exercise their prerogatives under the Charter.
THE BLOCKADE IN FIGURES
Two months ($1.6 billion) is equivalent to the cost of fuel to meet the country's normal electricity demand.
5 days is equivalent to the financing needed to repair one of the large thermoelectric plants (approximately one hundred million dollars each).
12 days (250 million dollars) is equivalent to the annual maintenance cost (not including fuel and investments).
Ten minutes ($148,966.82) is equivalent to the funding needed to cover the demand for hearing aids for children and adolescents with disabilities enrolled in special education in the country.
Two months (1.6 billion dollars) is equivalent to financing, for one year, for the delivery of the standard family basket to the population.
16 days is equivalent to the funding needed to cover the key needs of the entire country's basic medication regimen (339 million dollars).
14 hours (12 million dollars) is equivalent to the cost of acquiring the insulin needed to cover the needs of all diabetics in the country.
4 months (2.85 billion dollars) would finance the acquisition of the buses necessary for public transportation in the country.
2 hours (1.4 million dollars) is equivalent to the cost of purchasing medications for the treatment of psychiatric, cardiological, and neurological pathologies, as well as food for children with genetic deficiencies and endocrine-metabolic diseases.
19 minutes ($280,506) is equivalent to the cost of the wheelchairs needed by the Solidaridad con Panamá school, and all other schools in the country, to meet the needs of the Special Education System for children and adolescents with motor and intellectual disabilities.