Remittances To Cuba Again A Topic At United States Department Of State Daily Briefing
/United States Department of State
Washington DC
21 July 2021
Briefing with Mr. Ned Price, Spokesperson
QUESTION: And you have nothing – there’s nothing new on the Cuba remittances or the embassy staffing review, correct?
MR PRICE: Nothing I’m in a position to add today.
QUESTION: Okay. And on the Iran prisoner thing, still – there’s nothing new on that either?
MR PRICE: We were very clear on this.
QUESTION: Okay, okay.
MR PRICE: We spoke over the weekend; we spoke on Monday.
QUESTION: Sorry, on Cuba.
QUESTION: Could I —
QUESTION: Assistant Secretary Julie Chung put out some tweets about Cuba, and one of them mentioned, “We are going to focus on applying hard-hitting sanctions on regime officials.” Could you tell us a bit more about, like, what kind of sanctions you’re considering? Is this going to be GLOMAG? Or is there – is there – there are other ways that you could do this? And then is this a situation where you think sanctioning officials is going to make a difference?
MR PRICE: Well, so as not to repeat everything I said yesterday and to not face the ire —
QUESTION: The wrath.
MR PRICE: — the wrath, I will just make the very brief point that we spoke yesterday of steps that we are studying and looking into that would support the Cuban people, but also steps that would seek to hold to account Cuban Government officials responsible for the repression, for the crackdown, for the violence in the context of these peaceful street protests.
When it comes to sanctions, the Treasury Department’s OFAC, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, is exploring designating Cuban officials responsible for violence, repression, human rights violations against those peaceful protesters. We’re also working diligently with the international community to condemn the violence and repression that the Cuban people have faced. This is, as is almost always the case, one of those areas where U.S. action will be meaningful, it will be, we expect, effective, but it will be all the more meaningful if we are able to speak with one voice with the international community and we are able to make clear that the international community does not abide the regimes repression, crackdown, deprivation of human rights and civil liberties for the Cuban people.
So as you can expect, I’m not in a position to detail now what any potential sanctions might look like, what authorities we might use, but we are certainly looking at ways that we can hold accountable those Cuban regime officials who have been responsible for what we’ve seen.
QUESTION: So you don’t – there aren’t enough sanctions against Cuba already?
MR PRICE: Well —
QUESTION: You feel there’s still more room?
MR PRICE: Well, there – we are confident there is more room. There are broad sanctions imposed against Cuba, of course, with humanitarian carve-outs and tools we can use to ensure that much-needed humanitarian supplies can reach the Cuban people. But we are confident that we have policy tools available to us, to potentially include sanctions, that could be wielded against specific individuals who may be responsible for some of what we’ve seen.
QUESTION: Ned, what about helping the Cubans receive internet service? Do you have anything on this?
MR PRICE: We discussed this yesterday.
QUESTION: Sure.
MR PRICE: I’m happy to give you the quick summary, but we are working with the private sector and with Congress to identify viable options to make the internet more accessible to the Cuban people. And when we talk about our collaboration with the private sector, we are actively collaborating to identify solutions and proposals that are creative and to seek to ensure that the Cuban people have access to that free flow of information. That’s so important to us in large part because we have seen the actions that the Cuban Government has taken in the context of these peaceful demonstrations — the internet crackdowns, the blockages, the efforts on the part of the regime to stifle the voice of the Cuban people, to stifle their access to information – and so we are exploring options with both Congress and the private sector to that effect.
