For the 22nd year in a row Cuba has introduced a resolution at the United Nations general assembly calling for the United States to end its 53-year economic war against the island nation.

The ambassadors of more than 36 other countries have taken the floor to support the Cuban motion, which will be voted on at the end of the month.

The US government has not given up its strategy - to do so much damage to the Cuban economy that the people will rise up to restore capitalist rule.

That this plan has not worked in five decades does not daunt US leaders.

The Cuban document states that the US economic boycott has cost the Cuban people $1,157,327,000 (around £720 billion) to date.

In spite of early hopes that the Barack Obama administration would at least soften the policy, the blockade is actually becoming more intense and oppressive as the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) has become more active in blocking Cuba-related financial and banking transactions.

The US claims the right to go after third-country (neither Cuban nor US) persons, institutions and businesses that trade with Cuba if they are linked to US businesses.

Given the increasing integration of the world's financial institutions in which US financial entities play such a huge role, this means that Ofac can target and fine US affiliates for the business their parent companies do with Cuba.

The Trading with the Enemy Act - extended by President Obama last year - the Torricelli Act and the Helms-Burton (Cuba Democracy) Act, plus the absurd listing of Cuba as a "state sponsor of terrorism," constitute the backbone of US policy towards Cuba.

Just a few of the many examples provided by Cuba of the effects of this blockade serve to show its injustice.

Britain's Cuba Solidarity Campaign (CSC) recently tried to buy 100 copies of Salim Lamrami's 2013 book The Economic War Against Cuba: A Historical and Legal Perspective on the US Blockade, which was published by Monthly Review Press in New York, to distribute in their solidarity work in Britain.

However, the financial transaction for the purchase of the books, which entailed both Chase Bank in New York and the Co-operative Bank in Britain, was stopped by Ofac.

It demanded that CSC explain to the US what its relation to Cuba is - even though the books were not produced in or destined for Cuba.

Several third-country banks and insurance companies have told Cuba that they have to cancel their accounts and policies with Cuban entities because US businesses with which they are linked fear that if they don't they will be fined. One Japanese bank, Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, was fined $8,571,634 (£5,345,175) for processing fund transfers with Cuba.

The Cuban embassies in Botswana and Namibia recently found that their staff's car insurance had been cancelled - because the insurance company had been bought by a US firm.

Third-country banks go along with this nonsense because under Ofac rules if they do not co-operate with the blockade their assets in the United States could be confiscated.

Cuba is famous for its state-of-the-art health care and health research work and for the help it provides to other poor countries in healthcare, including the training of thousands of doctors.

However, there are things that Cuba cannot do in the healthcare field because of the ever-vigilant Ofac snoops.

Cuba cannot acquire certain types of advanced healthcare, diagnostic and surgical equipment, or has had to pay extra for equipment that lacks the 10 per cent of US-origin materials or parts which makes the blockade kick in.

Cuban healthcare professionals are forbidden from attending some international health meetings and seminars because part of the expenses of these activities are being paid by US institutions or non-governmental organisations, which could be fined.

Cuba is supposed to be able to buy some food from the US, but cannot do so on normal credit terms, which drives up the costs.

Naturally, Cuba is not allowed to sell its products in the US - even medical innovations that would be helpful to US people.

In addition, the embargo hinders US business. Recently a group representing 11 mid-west state governments voted in favour of lifting the Cuba trade restrictions, which hurt the economy of this agricultural-rich region.

According to the resolution if the restrictions were ended each of these states could win $60-150m (£38-95m) annually in additional trade.

Cuba considers that these actions, aimed at the entire Cuban people, fit the UN's official definition of genocide.

But US ambassadors to the United Nations have always contemptuously denied that the blockade is harming the Cuban people at all.

This vindictive and spiteful blockade is doing real damage - and it's getting worse.

This article appeared in People's World.