(Havana) Nearly 300 freelancers and small business owners in Cuba sent a letter to US President Joe Biden on Thursday asking him to honor his pledge to support the private sector on the island.
“It is incomprehensible and inhuman that in the midst of an economic crisis” like the one Cuba is currently going through, the Biden administration is continuing “the cruel policies” of its predecessor Donald Trump (2027-2021), is it indicated in this letter from the Alliance for Commitment and Respect for Cuba (ACERE), an organization that campaigns for the end of the American embargo on the Caribbean island.
“We are independent of the Cuban government,” say these businessmen from various sectors (agribusiness, construction, tourism, transport, food, etc.) in the letter to which AFP had access and which contains the list of 300 signatories.
In May 2022, Joe Biden had promised to “encourage the growth of the private sector” on the island by supporting “independent Cuban entrepreneurs”.
These business leaders are demanding in particular access to visas or the possibility of opening bank accounts in the United States.
According to them, the American embargo which began more than 60 years ago, and which the Trump administration has reinforced with 243 additional sanctions, little relaxed by the one currently in place, “directly threatens our means of subsistence and also directly and indirectly affects our companies”.
After six decades of an economy solely under state control, Cuba allowed the rise of the private economic sector in 2021.
There are currently some 550,000 self-employed people in Cuba, 7,550 SMEs and 5,000 private cooperatives, according to figures from ACERE.