Isaac Saney of the Canadian Network on Cuba and a professor at Dalhousie University of Black and African diaspora studies and history: “Many economists, many specialists in Cuba, point to the principal cause of the Cuban economic distress as being this unprecedented economic war waged against Cuba that has now become a genocidal siege. It's become an obsession of Donald Trump, but particularly Marco Rubio, to starve an entire people into submission by deeming, by denying them basic access to trade, to fuel and the basic necessities. One question I'd like to point out: What country could withstand this would stand what Cuba has done for the last nearly nine, ten months of this vicious, vicious economic warfare raids against it? What would happen to Canada if somebody were to cut off its access to international trade and so forth? It would lead to chaos. And so I think it's important to bear in mind that what Cuba is undertaking, as Julio has pointed out, with its 176 measures, has been long debated and discussed about improving the efficiencies of the economy. But as the United Nations report and many scholars have pointed out in the studies, the principal cause of Cuba's economic distress is this is this criminal, illegal and immoral economic war waged by Washington.”