Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions on Thursday, asserting that the targeted individuals and organizations “fund the regime and its efforts to mobilize its radical revolutionary movements in the United States and around the world.” The Cuban president, Rubio said, poses a threat to U.S. national security, while the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba, with its “many majority holdings and subsidiaries,” is now “considered blocked.”
The new designations also apply to Alejandro Castro Espin, the former head of Cuban intelligence services and the son of former President Raúl Castro, as well as Raul Alejandro Castro Calis, Castro Espin’s son. Other entities added to the sanctions list include the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), the travel agency Amistur Cuba S.A., the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, and the mining company Minera La Victoria S.A.
“For decades, Cuba has been the world capital for radical left-wing terrorism,” Rubio said. “The regime in Havana has recruited, trained and backed violent Marxist and ‘third-worldist’ movements across our hemisphere and beyond. Today, we are targeting the network that enables and funds Cuba’s subversive and radical operations.”
Díaz-Canel, in a stated response, rejected the measures as “illegitimate” and said they are “aimed at reinforcing the blockade measures and the scenario of conflict between Cuba and the United States.” He added, “This political blindness is added to the coercive measures applied in recent weeks against our country, designed to harm the Cuban people. The aggressiveness and perversity of the Yankee government will clash with our determination to confront the worst scenarios and resist the imperialist onslaught.”
The sanctions are the latest in a series of moves by the Trump administration to ratchet up pressure on the Cuban government. The administration has set a Friday deadline for foreign companies to sever ties with GAESA, the business conglomerate run by Cuba’s Armed Forces, a step that has already prompted a mass exodus of tourism-related businesses from the island.
Cuba is also struggling with the effects of a January 2026 executive order by President Donald Trump imposing a fuel blockade on national security grounds. According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the World Health Organization, the blockade has caused shortages of electricity, fuel, medicine, and medical supplies. The U.N. bodies said emergency care, blood banks, laboratories, immunization programs, and maternal and child health services have all been “severely disrupted.”