Rubio places additional sanctions on Cuba, targeting ‘illicit’ shipping network

The Trump administration announced another wave of sanctions against Cuba Thursday, targeting 10 individuals and entities tied to the country’s government, military and oil industry.

The State Department accused Cuba’s “ruling elite” in its announcement of “hoarding the island’s energy, shipping, and technology resources for its own enrichment, leaving the Cuban people to contend with blackouts, shortages, and a stagnant economy.”

The department said the sanctions target Cuban officials, state-owned businesses, Chinese suppliers providing equipment to its military and an offshore network involved in shipping crude oil amid the U.S.’s ongoing fuel embargo against the Caribbean nation. It also designated five vessels as blocked property.

“The Marxist regime in Havana relies on a web of state-owned enterprises, joint ventures, and offshore intermediaries to keep this system running,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in the release.

“Its foreign backers supply the military equipment that helps sustain the regime’s military forces and enable its brutal repression, while propping up its persistent efforts to threaten, infiltrate and subvert the American homeland,” he continued.

Among those sanctioned is Guillermo Faustino Rodriguez Lopez Calleja, whom the department identified as working with a network of offshore shipping companies transporting Cuban crude oil to and from the island.

The administration also sanctioned Any Rodriguez Lastres, whose mother — Ania Guillerma Lastres Morera — is the president of Cuba’s military-linked business conglomerate, Grupo de Administración Empresarial (GAESA), and was previously sanctioned by the U.S.

The Treasury Department also issued a rule allowing the U.S. to impose sanctions on foreign individuals and companies operating in Cuba’s electronics, manufacturing, marine and technology sectors.

“The Trump Administration will not stand by while the Cuban regime funnels the island’s resources to its military elite, while regime insiders and their family members profit from opaque offshore networks, and while Cuba continues to serve as a staging ground for a global coalition of hostile anti-American actors to threaten, spy on, and plot against the United States and its interests,” Rubio said.

The move broadens the range of foreign businesses that could face U.S. sanctions over their dealings with Cuba. It also adds to the administration’s efforts to choke off revenue to Cuba’s government and military-linked businesses while continuing to pressure Havana’s communist regime.

It also comes after Rubio offered Cubans the opportunity to enter into a discrete “partnership” with the CIA in late October and President Trump signaled plans to take military action against the island.