WASHINGTON: The United States ramped up its pressure campaign against Cuba on Monday with a new wave of sanctions targeting state-owned enterprises, militia groups and the island’s tourism ministry.
Since January, US President Donald Trump’s administration has heaped pressure on the neighboring country’s communist leadership, with increased sanctions and an effective oil blockade that has exacerbated Cuba’s worst economic crisis in decades.
The sanctions announced Monday target the “interlocking pillars” of Cuba’s economic and political “apparatus”, the state department said in a statement, describing “state-owned entities that funnel revenue to the regime and paramilitary forces, armed civilian groups, and surveillance organisations that repress the Cuban people.”
Among the groups targeted were the “Territorial Troops Militia”, a civilian paramilitary organisation known by its Spanish acronym MTT; and the “Rapid Response Brigades”, described as para-police groups organized and trained by the Cuban government.
The “Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution” (ACRC), which the state department said “conducts surveillance on dissidents”, was also listed.
The sanctions also hit several state-owned firms involved in fuel imports and other trade-related industries, as well as Cuba’s Tourism Ministry.
Tourism is normally one of Cuba’s biggest industries, but visits to the Caribbean island have plummeted this year amid the US pressure campaign, while sanctions have prompted several international hotel groups to shutter their operations.
Several of the sanctioned entities are linked to the military-run GAESA conglomerate, which is the main driver of economic activity on the island.
GAESA was sanctioned on May 1 and has already begun divesting assets in an attempt to escape economic pressure.
In a separate statement, the treasury department said it did not intend to target non-US persons through Aug 12 “for engaging in transactions ordinarily incident and necessary to the wind down of transactions involving GECOMEX (and) GEMAR,” two of the firms sanctioned Monday.
It urged foreign entities to contact the US treasury’s sanctions compliance department if they are “unable to wind down transactions… before Aug 12, 2026.”
