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The government said it is considering a range of additional options, including providing Internet access for Cubans.
The Biden administration announced New sanctions It opposed the Cuban National Revolutionary Police and its two senior officials on Friday because the United States hopes to increase pressure on the Communist government after the island’s protests this month.
The latest sanctions announced by the Foreign Assets Control Office of the Ministry of Finance have targeted the National Revolutionary Police and the agency’s director and deputy director Oscar Callejas Valcasse and Eddie Serra Arias. The police are part of the Cuban Ministry of Interior. As early as January, they were fully designated by the Trump administration.
“We heard free calls from the island. The United States is taking concerted action to support the cause of the Cuban people,” President Joe Biden said at the beginning of a White House meeting with Cuban-Americans shortly after the Treasury Department announced the sanctions.
Heidy Prieto of Greensboro, North Carolina cried as he protested against the Cuban government in Lafayette Park near the White House in Washington [Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo]The government stated that it is considering a wide range of other options to deal with protest, Including providing Internet access for Cubans, and setting up a working group to review U.S. remittance policies to ensure that more Cuban-Americans send home money directly into their families without being affected by the government. Cuts. Biden added that more sanctions are coming.
The White House meeting was convened after an unusual three weeks Protest on July 11 Thousands of Cubans took to the streets of Havana and other cities to protest shortages, power outages and government policies. This is the first such protest since the 1990s.
The Ministry of Finance said in a statement that the Cuban regime deployed a PNR to attack the protesters. According to the Ministry of Finance, police officers were photographed confronting protesters and arrested in Havana, including members of the Mothers Movement on July 11, an organization that aims to organize the families of imprisoned and missing persons.
White House officials said that Biden will discuss new sanctions and possible ways to establish Internet access for the Cuban people.
Internet access is a sensitive issue in Cuba. A few days before the recent protests, there were calls on social media for anti-government demonstrations.The Cuban government stated that the U.S. anti-Castro organization has used social media, Especially Twitter, opposed it and accused Twitter of not taking any measures to stop it.
During the protests, Internet services were once cut off, although the Cuban authorities did not explicitly admit that they did so.
The Biden administration is also considering suggestions made by American advocates for trade with Cuba that will restore the way Cuban Americans send money to relatives on the island.
The 1.5 million Cuban Americans in Florida voted vigorously for Republican Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Winning back their support is crucial for Biden’s Democrats to win the swing state in the 2024 presidential election.
Hundreds of people, many of Cuban descent, protested against the Cuban government in Lafayette Park, Washington [Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo]John Suarez, executive director of the Free Cuba Center, said: “I think if Biden has a successful Cuban policy that can put the regime on the defensive and provide concrete support to Cubans, it will benefit him among voters in Florida. “If the regime collapses under his leadership, it may change the rules of the game.”
Gennadi Rodriguez, 40, said that he moved from Cuba to Miami in 2013, and he said he thought Biden had been too slow in addressing Cuban policies in the months leading up to the protests. The Biden administration has conducted a long review of its Cuban policy inherited from the Donald Trump administration.
Rodriguez said that Biden is unlikely to please Cuban-American hardliners without clashing with liberal voters.
“Biden puts himself in a lose-lose situation. Now it will be more difficult for him to choose to participate in policy,” he said.
32-year-old Alejandro Ortiz also moved from Cuba to Miami. He said he thought Biden was too slow to react to the Cuban government after the protests.
“I saw a kind of passive attitude,” he said. “He needs to take measures faster and harsher.”
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