New US sanctions are 'collective punishment', Cuba's FM says during May 1 marches

Cuba said Friday that US President Donald Trump's fresh sanctions on the island amounted to "collective punishment," as an enormous May 1 procession outside the American embassy in Havana vowed to "defend the homeland". Trump has mused about taking over Cuba, which lies 145 kilometres from Florida and has been under a nearly continuous US trade embargo since Fidel Castro led a communist revolution that overthrew Washington-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Late Friday, the US president told an audience in Florida that the US would be "taking over" the Caribbean island "almost immediately". In an executive order on Friday, the US leader said he would impose sanctions on people involved in sweeping sections of the Cuban economy, which is steered by the government. Cubans mark May Day amid rising humanitarian crisis To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. © France 24 03:36 The latest sanctions constitute "collective punishment" of the nation's people, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said. "We firmly reject the recent unilateral coercive