*Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, has claimed that the “economic war” being waged by the US on Cuba had cost the country US$5.06bn between March 2023 and 2024, up US$189.8m on the previous year. Rodríguez was speaking during a press conference to present Cuba’s annual report on the repercussions of the US embargo ahead of its habitual resolution to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) calling for an end to the “blockade” to use Cuba’s preferred nomenclature. He said that the consequences could be felt in the day-to-day life of Cubans “like never before” in the form of blackouts, food, medicine, and fuel shortages, and “the deterioration of other basic services”. He insisted that the US embargo was “the fundamental and determining” factor in the serious crises the country has faced over the last four years. He did not explain why those crises had emerged then when the embargo had been in place for decades beforehand.
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