U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday announced new sanctions on two Cuban business entities and an executive of one of them as part of the Trump administration’s efforts for regime change on the island. Photo by Tom Brenner/UPI | License Photo
The U.S. government on Thursday issued new sanctions aimed at depriving the Cuban government and military of “access to illicit assets.”
The U.S. Department of State sanctioned Moa Nickel SA (MNSA), Grupo de Administracion Emresarial S.A. (GAESA) and GAESA’s senior executive officer Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera for bringing Cuba “to ruin and actioned off the island as a platform for foreign intelligence, military and terror operations,” it said in a press release.
President Donald Trump in his first term reversed President Barack Obama’s efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, tightening travel restrictions as he said he said he was “canceling the last administration’s completely one-sided deal with Cuba.”
In January, after deposing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro Trump declared a national emergency over Cuba to create a mechanism to impose tariffs on countries that provide the nation with oil because it constitutes “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security.
“These sanctions are part of the Trump administration’s comprehensive campaign to address the pressing national security threats posed by Cuba’s communist regime and hold accountable the regime and those who provide it material or financial support,” Rubio said in the release.
GAESA is an umbrella enterprise that controls roughly 40% of Cuba’s economy while its proceeds are “funneled away to hidden overseas bank accounts,” the State Department alleged in the release.
Estimating that the business controls about $20 billion in “illicit assets” while not investing to solve hunger and poverty on the island or in critical national infrastructure, including its power grid which frequently fails.
MNSA is alleged by the State Department to have “exploited Cuba’s national resources to benefit the regime,” some of which it said were expropriated by the nation’s government since the Castro regime took power there decades ago.
In a statement posted on X, Cuban Prime Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parilla called Rubio and the department’s statements “cynical, hypocritical and deceitful” and that he “resorts to slander, evident lies and the illusion that he succeeds in deceiving those who listen to him.”
“The aggression of the United States against Cuba is a collective punishment of a genocidal nature that condems the entire nation and uses it as a hostage for purposes of domination,” Rodriguez Parilla said.
This week in Washington
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La.,, speaks during an observance celebrating the 75th National Day of Prayer in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
