The Trump administration on Monday intensified its pressure campaign against Cuba’s government, issuing sanctions on three government agencies and 11 top officials. Those targeted included three generals and communist party officials associated with the Cuban security apparatus.
Such sanctions, usually used against accused drug traffickers, human-rights violators and terrorists, freeze any property and bank accounts they may have in the United States.
While it is unlikely that any of the Cubans targeted have U.S. assets, the move is an important escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign to force the communist government to overhaul is economic and political system.
“Regime-aligned actors such as those designated today bear responsibility for the suffering of the Cuban people, the failing Cuban economy, and the exploitation of Cuba for foreign intelligence, military, and terror operations,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. “Today’s designations further restrict the Cuban regime’s ability to suppress the will of the Cuban people.”
The move followed an earlier wave of sanctions that pressured some foreign companies doing business in Cuba to pull out of the island, potentially setting off a cascade of worse economic difficulties.
Following an executive order this month aimed at making it harder to do business on the island, Hapag-Lloyd, a German shipping line, and CMA CGM, a French shipping firm, suspended bookings to and from Cuba. The withdrawal of the shipping companies was considered by some analysts to be particularly damaging, because they delivered much-needed products to the island.
A Canadian mining company, Sherritt International Corporation, also announced that it was pulling out of its joint ventures with Cuba.
The Cuban government did not respond to requests for comment.
Among the top Cuban officials hit by the new sanctions on Monday were the president of the national assembly, as well as the ministers of communications, mines and energy, and justice. Several people working for the armed forces, including the deputy minister of defense and three generals, were also named, as were the Ministry of Interior, the National Revolutionary Police and the Directorate of Intelligence.
John Kavulich, the president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a nonpartisan, private organization that follows Washington’s trade policy, said the sanctions were important because of the high-profile positions the people targeted occupy.
“Optically, it’s significant because it adds to the portfolio the Trump administration is developing to — hopefully, from their perspective — use as bargaining tools,” Mr. Kavulich said.
The Trump administration has been hitting Cuba with repeated blows aimed at crippling the communist government that has run the country since 1959. Cuba has gotten virtually no oil this year after the administration blocked oil shipments from Venezuela, the island’s main source, and blocked almost all other foreign fuel deliveries.
The lack of oil has plunged the country into prolonged blackouts. Even Havana, the capital, is now without power for as long as 22 hours a day.
“For Cuba, it’s ugly,” Mr. Kavulich said. “And it’s getting more ugly.”
The administration has also been conducting surveillance flights around the island. Last week, the C.I.A. director, John Ratcliffe, visited the island and demanded that Cuba shut down Chinese and Russian listening posts that it hosts.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice is widely expected to announce a criminal indictment against Raúl Castro, the former defense minister and president, for having ordered the shooting down of two civilian planes in 1996. Four people were killed.
The United States and Cuba have been engaged in secret negotiations in which Washington has demanded certain changes, including an economic opening and compensation for people whose properties were confiscated by the government decades ago.
President Miguel Díaz Canel has called the series of U.S. actions an “international crime.”
“Cuba poses no threat, nor does it have aggressive plans or intentions against any country,” he wrote on X. “Cuba, which already endures a multidimensional aggression from the U.S., does have the absolute and legitimate right to defend itself.’’
Miguel Cossio, the executive director of the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora in South Florida, said the sanction targets appeared to have been carefully chosen.
The museum, along with the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, prepared a dossier to be released Tuesday with a recommended list of dozens of Cuban officials who they say they believe have participated in repression, politically motivated prosecutions, corruption, and other crimes that should make them eligible for sanctions.
“They are not choosing these guys just for fun,” Mr. Cossio said. “These are the elite of the inner circle of government who are really running the government and are part of structure of espionage and repression.”
Frances Robles is a Times reporter covering Latin America and the Caribbean. She has reported on the region for more than 25 years.
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