CUBAN President Miguel Diaz-Canel has condemned the continuing US blockade of his country during a rally to mark the beginning of the revolutionary struggle on the Caribbean island in 1953.

He was reacting to the Trump administration’s illegal blockade, which includes a crippling oil embargo that has produced regular blackouts and economic hardship.

Speaking at the event in Pinar del Rio on Sunday, Mr Diaz-Canel said: “I denounce that Cuba is the victim of a cold-bloodedly calculated genocide.”

The United States, he said, was engaged in “economic strangulation.”

Employers have been forced to reduce working days, industrial production has stopped and water and medicine shortages are hitting a country already suffering from the effect of previous US sanctions and financial reforms that caused inflation.

Payment companies Visa and Mastercard, Spain’s Melia hotel chain and Air Canada and Air France have all exited the socialist island amid the crisis.

“Cuba is today waging a historic battle against the walls of a genocidal policy whose objective is to suffocate an entire people in order to appropriate the country,” Mr Diaz-Canel said.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to “take over” Cuba, following the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a key ally of Havana, in a US military attack that killed 100 people in early January.

A US State Department report accused Cuba’s government last week of running a spying and influence network against Washington and its Latin American neighbours.

In May, the US accused former president and revolutionary leader Raul Castro, brother of Fidel, of murder and other crimes for his alleged part in the downing of two civilian aircraft operated by Miami-based far-right exiles off the Cuban coast in 1996.

Cuba has rejected the accusations and denounced Mr Trump’s rhetoric. Talks between the two countries have stalled, Cuban officials said last month.