According to The New York Times, Embargo Is Now a “Blockade”

Major media outlets typically describe the U.S. economic war on Cuba as a trade “embargo.” The Cuban government and people — who must live with the effects of this policy — have always described it as “el bloqueo” (the blockade).

Now, the language is shifting — among both U.S. officials and media outlets.

“A New U.S. Blockade Is Strangling Cuba,” an article The Times published last week, details how the U.S. military and Coast Guard are physically preventing oil tankers from reaching the island. The article cites an anonymous U.S. official as saying the Coast Guard’s operations are “part of a blockade that the Trump administration has not yet announced.”

In mid-December, Trump announced a “total and complete blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers traveling to and from Venezuela. CNN reported in January that U.S. Chargé d'Affaires to Cuba Mike Hammer told diplomats “there is going to be a real blockade … nothing is getting in.”

The Trump administration’s implementation of sanctions against Cuba has become increasingly militaristic since December, when multiple Venezuelan oil tankers headed to the island were seized at gunpoint by the U.S. military.