Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) doubled down on her comments blaming the United States, which is the number one provider of food to the Cuban people, for the suffering of the Cuban people.
“Now, the other piece of this is the U.S. administration,” Ocasio-Cortez began. “And what’s extraordinarily important for us to communicate as well is you, is you, is the actions and U.S. contributions to the suffering of Cubans on the island as well. And that is directly related to the embargo, the U.S. embargo, economic embargo, that is, that is, frankly, uh, has been in place for over 60 years.”
Ocasio-Cortez then made the argument that “cruelty” was the goal of an embargo which does not apply to humanitarian aid or the sale of food or medicine and was put in place by the number one provider of food to the Cuban people. The argument seemed to be flawed when compared to things like reality, since the government of Cuba has rejected food aid from the United States multiple times and initially refused to trade with the United States when the embargo was relaxed in 2000.
“Last month, uh, once again, the, uh, the U.N. voted overwhelmingly, uh, to call on the United States to lift its embargo on Cuba, and the United States was one of the only, uh, countries that voted no,” she continued. “The embargo, the U.S. embargo, is absurdly cruel, and like other U.S. policies, particularly other U.S. policies targeting Latin Americans and Latinos, the cruelty is the point.”
“And I outright reject the Biden administration’s defense of the embargo, where they say or they have said that they wanted to maintain the bar, the embargo, as it is a source of leverage and pressure, there is no way where it is acceptable for us to use cruelty as a, as a point of leverage against every day people, period,” she concluded. “Whether it’s our border, or whether it’s the U.S. embargo on Cuba, the cruelty is the point.”
