Grahame Mark Morris is a British Labour Party politician and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Cuba (Credit: Wikipedia)

By Gary Raynaldo     DIPLOMATIC   TIMES

Grahame Morris, a British MP for Easington, has sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden asking him to reverse sanctions imposed under the Trump administration and to permit humanitarian aid and family remitances to be allowed into the country in the light of the current COVID-10 pandemic.  Morris is also  Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Cuba.  Morris urged President Biden to lift the “punitive restrictions” and to abstain on UN General Assembly Resolution to lift the blockade to send a clear message to the world, for practical and humanitarian reasons.  The British MP  wrote in letter to  President Biden that “Donald Trump applied 242 new sanctions against Cuba causing pointless damage and suffering to the Cuban people that are worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Among the 242 new sanctions, Cuba was included on the US list as state sponsor of terrorism, an action that international observers and many US politicians including former President Barack Obama´s advisers described it as spurious and politicized, Morris wrote.

“On June 23, 2021, the world will vote again at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) for a resolution calling for the end of the US blockade against Cuba, so in an international cooperation spirit I do ask you to abstain from voting as the United States already did in 2016, when you served as vice president,”  MP  Morris wrote.

Loud and clear: parliamentary group on #Cuba in the British House of Commons explains @POTUS why US policy towards the Island is wrong and ought to be changed pic.twitter.com/nBbhYEbWkK

— Dr C José Ramón Cabañas Rodriguez (@JoseRCabanas) May 18, 2021

“In Cuba’s most recent report to the United Nations it estimates that the US embargo and new measures cost the economy more than 5.5 billion dollars from April 2019 to March 2020 alone. This has impacted on living conditions, the availability of food, fuel and medicines – even preventing delivery of emergency COVID-19 medical aid during pandemic from third countries to Cuba.”  -MP Morris. 

The Honourable Joe Biden
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500

Cc: Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S Ambassador to the United Nations; Anthony Blinken,
U.S Secretary of State; Her Excellency Yael Lempert, U.S Ambassador to the United
Kingdom