Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez today criticised US President Joe Biden, who signed a bill banning the application or validation of trademarks confiscated by the island’s government.

«The so-called Stolen Trademarks Act recently signed by Biden modifies the law as an aggressive measure against Cuba,» the foreign minister of the Antillean country wrote on Monday on X. «The law is a very aggressive measure against Cuba,» he said.

According to the diplomat, the aim of the law is «precisely to open the door, in violation of international law, to the theft of Cuban trademarks legitimately registered» in US territory.

The White House reported that Biden signed a proposal, approved by the US Congress, that prohibits the Patent and Trademark Office from recognising, enforcing or otherwise validating any assertion of rights in such trademarks.

There are 6,448 US trademarks registered in Cuba and 1,177 in the process of registration, according to Johana Tablada de la Torre, Deputy Director General of the Foreign Ministry’s General Directorate of the United States.

All of them are protected by the Cuban Industrial Property authority, a very different attitude to that adopted by the US government when it signed the Stolen Trademarks Act, which should be called the Bacardi Act, she said on the social network.

In this way, the diplomat alludes to the struggle between Cuba and the Bacardi company for the right to the worldwide distribution of the island’s most emblematic rum, Havana Club.

Biden signed the document, while numerous organisations and personalities from around the world are urging him directly or in international forums to modify the White House’s policy towards Cuba.

Eliminating the economic blockade, reversing the restrictions imposed by Donald Trump in his first term in office and excluding the country from the list of nations sponsoring terrorism, drawn up unilaterally by Washington, are some of the demands repeatedly made.