US Sanctions Certain To Aid The Spread Of Covid-19
The US has used economic sanctions to advance its imperialist agenda for many decades. It currently operates some form of sanctions against more than two dozen countries or territories. Among that number are five countries that face the most crippling and wide-ranging of sanctions.
North Korea and Cuba has been subject to sanctions since the 1950s, Iran since the late 1970s, Syria since the mid-1980s and Venezuela since it determined to pursue a socialist alternative to US-dominated capitalism.
US sanctions go much further than restricting interactions between US entities and these five countries. In addition the US uses its political and economic strength to impose fines and other punishments on states and non-US companies for trading with the targeted countries. As a result all five countries find it extremely difficult to trade with the outside world, or access finance, in a normal way.
The impact of US sanctions on the economies of these countries has been devastating. This in turn has devastated critical infrastructure including healthcare.
Indeed, this is what US sanctions are explicitly designed to do - to make life unbearable for the general population by targeting the poorest, the oldest, the youngest and the sickest. By doing so the US hope to create the conditions where ‘regime change’ becomes possible. Or failing that, they want to demonstrate to the world the cost of opposing the US.
Despite Covid-19, Donald Trump continues to tighten the sanctions noose on countries which refuse to bend the knee to the United States.
In normal times, it is the people of Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Syria and Venezuela that suffer the most because of US sanctions. It is they that are denied access to medical equipment and medication that people in other countries take for granted.
These five countries have a combined population of more than 160,000,000 people. Like human beings everywhere, they have no immunity to the deadly SARS-CoV-2 pathogen that is now stalking our planet.
US sanctions are inevitably going to inhibit the fight against Covid-19 in these countries. Each will face additional, unnecessary difficulties in accessing testing kits, ventilators, respirators, PPE, sanitation supplies, tracking apps and the many other resources that are needed to minimise the spread and impact of the virus.
There is no doubt that some within the US might welcome an uncontrolled outbreak of Covid-19 within one or all five countries. Such thinking is not only barbaric, it is also very short-sighted. Covid-19 has shown that it does not respect the borders that we humans have created. An uncontrolled outbreak in any one country will ultimately impact on every country.
Éirígí For a New Republic reaffirms our solidarity with those suffering under US sanctions and call for them to be lifted without delay to allow for a coordinated global effort to control and eliminate Covid-19.