Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions Tuesday against five Cuban state entities. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
June 24 (UPI) — The United States has sanctioned five Cuban state companies and the wife of Raul Castro‘s son, as the Trump administration continues to apply economic pressure on the Caribbean nation.
Three of the companies blacklisted by the State Department on Tuesday are associated with Grupo de Administracion Empresarial, which the United States initially sanctioned during the first Trump administration on accusations of being a Cuban military-controlled umbrella enterprise with interests sprawling throughout the island nation’s economy.
The two other entities hit are accused of operating in Cuba’s mining sector with foreign investment from Australia as well as working in collaboration with Russia.
Annalie Lilliam Rueda Cadero was sanctioned for being the wife of Alejandro Castro Espin, the son of Raul Castro, Cuba’s former head of state. Alejandro Castro was sanctioned by the Trump administration earlier this month.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a social media statement that he was sanctioning GAESA network entities for diverting Cuba’s money and assets and the two other companies for exploiting its mineral and metal reserves.
“The situation in Cuba is devolving as the island’s corrupt, brutal and anti-American Communist regime continues to prioritize its own total control over the freedom, opportunity and basic well-being of the Cuban people,” he said.
Sanctions generally freeze U.S.-based property or interests in property under the control of those designated while threatening foreign businesses with secondary sanctions for doing business with them.
The United States has long imposed a blockade and sanctions on Cuba, but the economic punitive measures have starkly increased during the second Trump administration, exasperating the power and energy shortages in the country, causing blackouts. The supply shortages have forced more than 100,000 people, including 11,000 children, to wait for surgeries, according to the United Nations.
Tuesday’s designations come under an executive order Trump signed in May permitting the sanctioning of those operating in Cuba’s energy, defense, mining and financial services sectors, as well as those complicit in human rights abuses or corruption related to Cuba working or for providing services to the Havana government.
Trump has been increasing the political and economic pressure on Cuba since ousting Venezuela’s authoritarian leader in January, declaring a national emergency with respect to the island nation early this year.
Since signing the sanctions-related executive order in May, he has used it at least five times to designate Cuba-related entities and individuals.
Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez, accused the Trump administration on Tuesday of increasing its sanctions regime against Havana, because Havana continues to prove it is “stronger, more capable and efficient than it expected.”
He accused the Trump administration of collectively punishing the Cuban people.
Ernesto Soberon, Cuba’s United Nations ambassador, accused the United States of lying about employing sanctions due to human rights abuses by Havana.
“No government, no person with even a shred of common sense — and certainly not the people of #Cuba, who are suffering the humanitarian impact of the U.S. economic war — can believe that the tightening of the blockade, the energy siege and the newly announced sanctions are intended to support the Cuban people,” he said on social media.
“Anyone who has doubts should ask the parents of the more than 12,000 children currently awaiting surgery in Cuba as a result of the U.S. government’s genocidal policy.”
