Trump administration announces new sanctions on Cuba, escalating economic pressure

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced new sanctions Thursday against Cuban individuals and entities, part of the Trump administration’s escalating pressure campaign against the communist regime in Havana.

The latest sanctions target leaders of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), which Rubio said exploits educational exchange with the goal of “identifying, cultivating, and radicalizing subversives.”

“The Trump Administration will not stand by while a hostile foreign power seeks to exploit our freedoms – none of which are afforded to its people – by misleading and corrupting American citizens with lies, spy tradecraft, and other malfeasance as part of the regime’s raison d’être of exporting Marxism, racial resentment, and Communist violence across the world,” Rubio said in a statement.

The administration sanctioned ICAP in June, and the actions this week blacklist the organization’s President Fernando González Llort, First Vice President Noemi Ramona Rabaza Fernandez, and North America Director Leima Martinez Freire.

The sanctions followed an event last week hosted at a cafe in Washington, D.C., that included Cuban Ambassador to the U.S. Lianys Torres Rivera, reflecting on the legacy of Fidel Castro, the repressive authoritarian leader who established the communist government.

“Just days ago, the regime attempted to use Communist kingpin and despot Fidel Castro’s 100th birthday to reinvigorate this subversive network, ferrying a new brigade of international sympathizers to Havana to network with regime officials,” Rubio said.

Other sanctions announced Thursday include four entities involved in the metals and mining industry for being state-owned or affiliated with the Cuban regime as well as three entities involved in import-export operations, including vehicles, industrial equipment, appliances and construction materials.

The U.S. also imposed sanctions on Cuba’s Ministry of Construction and a Cuban government entity supplying Cuban labor to foreign entities operating in the country.

Rubio said the new sanctions target entities “that sustain the regime’s repressive apparatus through control of key economic sectors.”

“Today’s designations make clear that the Trump Administration will not tolerate the Cuban regime’s efforts to fund its repression or continue its decades-long campaign of subversive anti-American activities,” he said.

President Trump has made trying to overthrow Cuba’s ruling communist party a priority, saying in May that the U.S. will “take over” the Caribbean nation, imposing a de facto oil blockade against the country and designating it a state sponsor of terrorism. The U.S. economic pressure campaign has led to a deepening humanitarian crisis on the island, but the country’s communist leaders have so far rejected U.S. appeals to step aside.