According to the Diario de Cuba website, the basket of the monthly purchase of the Government of Cuba in USA during June included a not inconsiderable number of sugara product for which the Island became famous in the world centuries ago, but whose production today is so depressed that it is not enough to satisfy domestic needs.
In accordance with public data offered by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), purchases of this product rose in the sixth month of 2023 to $30,241a period in which imports of food and agricultural products grew by 60.8%.
Exports from the US to the Island were of the order of 37,071,007 dollars, well above the 26,476,991 in May. This represents an interannual increase of 11.1%.
Apart from sugar, Cuban purchases from its neighbor to the north included chicken meat, the product that by far leads those acquisitions. Havana also received food such as bacon, butter, olive, sunflower and rapeseed oil, as well as waffles and wafers.
At a time when Cubans do not even receive the coffee powder that is distributed through the ration book, the Government has bought almost two million dollars of this product in the US so far in 2023something that does month to month.
Pasta, communion wafers, ice cream, cookies, powdered milk, beer and toilet paper are added to the above.
Despite the fact that the Cuban government denies acquiring health care products in the neighbor to the north, in June, acquisitions of this nature amounted to $57,167.
By your side, Humanitarian donations sent to Cuba from the United States totaled $3,296,330 in products in the sixth month of 2023.
In the first semester of the current year, imports from Havana rounded up to 160,259,463 dollars. Since the start of these sales, in December 2001, the total amount is $7,063,985,829.
All exports are authorized, despite the embargo, under the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Improvement Act (TSREEA, for its acronym in English) of 2000, approved by the Administration of George W. Bush, to which Havana resorts without pause since December 2001.
Neither the authorities nor the official press make mention of this commercial volume. Instead, they say that the “greed of the neighbor to the north” seeks to drown Cubans in suffering.
Despite the propaganda from Havana, Today Cuba ranks 57th among the US export markets for food and agricultural products.
FOUNTAIN: diariodecuba.com / JOSÉ LUIS REYES
