US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a new wave of sanctions targeting Cuban entities on Thursday, including the country’s Ministry of Construction, in the latest bid to cripple the communist government.
Several state-owned enterprises working in the metals and mining sector, which “sustain the regime’s repressive apparatus through control of key economic sectors,” were also sanctioned, Rubio said.
He also targeted three top leaders of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples , an entity which “hosts international brigades at facilities across Cuba.”
The group’s now-sanctioned president, Fernando Gonzalez Llort, was convicted in the US of being a Cuban spy and spent 15 years in prison, but “continued his efforts to destabilize the United States following his return to Cuba through his involvement with IC,” according to the State Department.
“Today’s designations make clear that the Trump Administration will not tolerate the Cuban regime’s efforts to fund its repression or continue its decades-long campaign of subversive anti-American activities,” Rubio said.
The Trump administration launched a new pressure campaign against Cuba’s communist government in January, following the toppling of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, a close ally of Havana.
An oil blockade imposed on the island has exacerbated already grim living conditions, while a series of new sanctions notably on the sprawling military-controlled conglomerate GAESA has scared away foreign businesses and cash.
The Trump administration has accused Cuba of threatening American national security by aiding adversaries such as Russia, China and Iran, but has more recently emphasized Havana’s alleged ties with left-wing movements in the US.
“The Cuban regime has long sponsored a vast subversive network in the United States aimed at identifying, cultivating, and radicalizing subversives, largely operating under the pretext of educational or cultural exchange,” Rubio said Thursday.
“Just days ago, the regime attempted to use Communist kingpin and despot Fidel Castro’s 100th birthday to reinvigorate this subversive network, ferrying a new brigade of international sympathizers to Havana to network with regime officials,” he said, without identifying any of the alleged “sympathizers.”
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