Russia condemns the renewed US attempts to economically strangle Cuba, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. Her comments come after US President Donald Trump moved to ramp up pressure on the island’s fuel lifeline.
On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order invoking a national emergency to lay the groundwork for tariffs on goods from countries that sell oil to Cuba. The move is meant to strengthen an embargo against Havana, which dates back to the 1960s. It also comes after Washington kidnapped in Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro, which served as Cuba’s primary source of oil.
In a statement on Saturday, Zakharova said that the crackdown amounts to illegitimate coercion of a sovereign state outside the UN framework. “What we see is yet another radical recurrence of Washington’s strategy of maximum pressure on the Island of Freedom, aimed at its economic suffocation,” Zakharova said.