The US Uses the Pandemic To Intimidate Venezuela and Cuba

The United States is using the COVID-19 pandemic as a weapon to strengthen its arbitrary blockade against Venezuela and Cuba, said Sacha Llorenti, the secretary of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America - Peoples' Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP).

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"The U.S. and its allies are taking advantage of the pandemic to maintain and expand measures that represent a crime against humanity," he denounced in an interview with teleSUR.

During Donald Trump’s administration, the U.S. arbitrarily imposed 243 measures to strengthen the blockade against Cuba. Up to the moment, however, President Joe Biden has not withdrawn a single one of those measures despite the fact that the pandemic is a global problem that demands international cooperation.

"They use the pandemic as a weapon to reinforce illegal measures and as a collective punishment" ALBA-TCP Secretary denounced.

Llorenti also recalled that his institution created a humanitarian fund for the purchase of vaccines for the benefit of ALBA-TCP countries.

So far, this fund has allowed the purchase of 14 percent of the doses required by these nations. ALBA-TCP has also transported vaccines free of charge from China to Dominica.

Created in 2004 as an alternative to neoliberal regional agreements, ALBA-TCP has managed to consolidate itself as a mechanism to preserve solidarity and unity among Latin American peoples.