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The heads of 15 of the nations that comprise the Caribbean Community trade alliance known as CARICOM today called for President-elect Obama to end the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.
CARICOM representatives are in Santiago de Cuba for its third annual summit with Cuba. CARICOM is comprised of Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Surinam, and Trinidad & Tobago.
"As we gather today in Cuba, the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America is still in place," said Antigua’s Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, the current CARICOM president, the BBC reports. "The Caribbean community hopes that the transformational change which is underway in the United States will finally relegate that measure to history."
"This embargo remains in spite of overwhelming calls by almost all UN member states in favor of its elimination," Spencer said, noted the Telegraph.
Cuban President Raúl Castro spoke of the "genocidal impact of the blockade."
The Obama Transition Team declined to comment.
- jpt