Thousands of Shipping Containers Bound For Cuba Held in Caribbean Ports

According to the Cuban Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment, the total number of containers being held exceeds 7,000

Photo by Ali Mkumbwa on Unsplash

Earlier this year, U.S. President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14404, threatening to sanction any entity that does business with Cuba, including the shipping of legally purchased products. Much like sanctioning cargo vessels and preventing them from docking in U.S. ports for 180 days if they dock in Cuba, the threat of potentially harsher additional sanctions in Trump’s May executive order has led various shipping companies to abandon shipments in adjacent countries throughout the region.

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In June, Medicuba S.A. denounced German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd for holding two containers loaded with epilepsy medications in the port of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. The group posted on social media that the company “refuses to release the cargo, citing compliance with the U.S. blockade.” The week before that, French shipping company CMA CGM left a container with more than 3.5 million syringes destined for Cuba sitting in a Jamaican port, citing Trump’s executive order.

During the latest session of Cuba’s National Assembly, the Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment, Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, informed lawmakers that more than 7,000 containers bound for Cuba were being held in ports throughout the Caribbean. According to Fraga, the containers are loaded with “merchandise lawfully purchased by Cuba under international trade rules,” including food, medicines, resources for the island’s drinking water program, and parts for the national electrical system.

Cuba’s National Assembly denounced U.S. measures against the island.

“Its nefarious consequences are suffered by the Cuban people daily, in every facet of life, while the U.S. government, acting as executioner, measures its successes by the death of a child unable to access adequate treatment; by the surgery canceled or postponed due to lack of electricity or sufficient materials; by the family anguish over shortages of electricity and water supply or the impossibility of preserving food,” the Cuban legislature’s declaration reads.

Despite the vast majority of world governments resoundingly rejecting the decades of oppression against Cuba and their denouncing of the current siege of Cuba, hardliners like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Florida Senator Rick Scott, and House Representatives such as Carlos Gimenez and Maria Elvira Salazar, along with wealthy elites like the Fanjul family are all foaming at the mouth to inflict harm on the Cuban people and pillage the island’s resources.

The impacts of the world’s largest shipping companies bowing to U.S. pressure have been dramatic and are being felt across multiple sectors. As data continue to show that sanctions cause tremendous harm and that Trump’s current blockade of the island impacts those with medical needs the most, the White House has continued to target the Cuban people for not doing what the United States demands: overthrowing their government and further destabilizing their country so that U.S. corporate interests can rob the island of its wealth.

As U.S. legacy news media ignores the harms being done to Cuba, many readers are likely just learning that Cuba has a National Assembly and that the country has elections. For corporate news, instead of addressing the oppression, it’ll only report when something like the electrical grid fails while only mentioning the energy blockade in passing. Considering U.S. corporate interests are the key driver of U.S. foreign policy, it benefits them to foster false narratives about Cuba and dictatorships, just as they do about other countries that have what corporations want.

Meanwhile, Rubio’s State Department is highlighting precisely how far it’s willing to go by ramping up its propaganda machine to justify the suffering imposed on the people he claims to care about; to rationalize going to war with them. Like Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. government manufactures what it needs to satisfy its imperialist objectives. Cuba is no different, and like Iraq, the U.S. news media ecosystem is all too happy to oblige.

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