HAVANA — Cuba on Tuesday criticized recent U.S. government sanctions against American Express Co. and an Italian bank for apparent violations of the 51-year-old economic and financial embargo against the island.
A Foreign Ministry statement published in Communist Party newspaper Granma slammed American Express' $5.2 million settlement with the U.S. Treasury Department last week to head off potential liability.
"The U.S. government once again makes absurd concessions to those opposed to change in policy toward Cuba," the statement said.
The embargo is a long-standing sore point for Havana. Official media issues near-constant complaints that what is known here as the "blockade" harms Cuban people first and foremost.
Embargo proponents, however, argue that violators prop up President Raul Castro's Communist-run government by providing Cuba's wobbly economy with badly needed cash.
Officials announced the settlement of the case involving American Express Travel Related Services Inc. on July 22.
The U.S. Treasury Department had found that foreign branch offices and subsidiaries of American Express issued more than 14,000 tickets for travel between Cuba and other countries between 2005 and 2011.
The company said last week that it had voluntarily self-disclosed those bookings to the Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, the Treasury branch responsible for enforcing the embargo, and had established mechanisms to avoid it from happening again.
