Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Thursday that the United States is imposing sanctions on eight entities and two individuals linked to the Cuban government, as part of an ongoing effort to pressure what officials describe as the island’s ruling networks and their foreign suppliers.
“The United States will not tolerate subversive communist networks in our hemisphere,” Rubio said. “The Marxist Cuban regime relies on a web of state-owned enterprises, joint ventures, and offshore intermediaries to keep its systems running, and its foreign backers supply the military equipment that helps sustain the regime’s military forces and enables persistent threats to the American homeland.”
In a State Department press release, Rubio said the sanctions target Cuba’s financial and shipping network, state-owned import and technical-support entities, and China-based suppliers to the Cuban military. The action is taken under President Trump’s Executive Order 14404, titled “Imposing Sanctions on Those Responsible for Repression in Cuba and for Threats to United States National Security and Foreign Policy.”
According to Rubio, ten targets in total are being designated, including additional Cuban elites, a crude oil shipping network, state-owned import and technical-support entities, and China-based military suppliers. The Department also identified five associated vessels as blocked property.
Among those named is Guillermo Faustino Rodriguez Lopez Calleja, whom Rubio described as part of an extensive network of offshore shipping companies that move Cuban crude oil to and from the island. Also designated is Any Rodriguez Lastres, daughter of previously sanctioned Grupo de Administración Empresarial (GAESA) President Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera.
The Treasury Department separately issued a determination under the same executive order authorizing economic sanctions against any foreign person operating in Cuba’s electronics, manufacturing, marine, and technology sectors.
In his statement, Rubio accused Cuba’s leadership of hoarding the island’s energy, shipping, and technology resources “for its own enrichment, leaving the Cuban people to contend with blackouts, shortages, and a stagnant economy.” He said the government in Havana depends on state-owned enterprises, joint ventures, and offshore intermediaries to sustain itself, with foreign backers supplying military equipment used for repression and for what he called efforts “to threaten, infiltrate and subvert the American homeland.”
“The Trump Administration will not stand by while the Cuban regime funnels the island’s resources to its military elite, while regime insiders and their family members profit from opaque offshore networks, and while Cuba continues to serve as a staging ground for a global coalition of hostile anti-American actors to threaten, spy on, and plot against the United States and its interests,” Rubio said.
The administration has framed the sanctions as part of a broader foreign policy approach toward Cuba and its allies. Further details on the designations were not immediately available.
