Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel was slapped with sanctions by the United States on Thursday as Washington continued to ratchet up pressure of the island nation’s communist government. File Photo by Ley Royero/EPA-EFE
June 4 (UPI) — The United States on Thursday leveled sanctions against Cuban Miguel Díaz-Canel, members of former President Raul Castro‘s family, the Cuban military and other organizations as it continued a crackdown on the country’s communist government.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the measures against Diaz-Canel the others in a statement, asserting they are being targeted because they “fund the [Cuban] regime and its efforts to mobilize its radical revolutionary movements in the United States and around the world.”
The Cuban president, Rubio said, poses a threat to U.S. national security, while the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba, with its “many majority holdings and subsidiaries,” is also now “considered blocked.”
Other organizations newly added to the sanctions list are the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, or ICAP, Amistur Cuba S.A., Committees for the Defense of the Revolution and Minera La Victoria S.A.
The individuals sanctioned include Alejandro Castro Espin, the former head of the Cuban intelligence services and the son of Raul Castro, and Raul Alejandro Castro Calis, Castro Espin’s son.
“For decades, Cuba has been the world capital for radical left-wing terrorism,” Rubio asserted. “The regime in Havana has recruited, trained and backed violent Marxist and ‘third-worldist’ movements across our hemisphere and beyond.
“Today, we are targeting the network that enables and funds Cuba’s subversive and radical operations.”
In a stated response, Diaz-Canel said the latest sanctions are “illegitimate” and are “aimed at reinforcing the blockade measures and the scenario of conflict between Cuba and the United States.
“This political blindness is added to the coercive measures applied in recent weeks against our country, designed to harm the Cuban people,” he added. “The aggressiveness and perversity of the Yankee government will clash with our determination to confront the worst scenarios and resist the imperialist onslaught.”
The newly issued sanctions are the latest in a series of moves designed to ratchet up pressure on the Cuban government.
The Trump administration has set a Friday deadline for foreign companies to sever ties with GAESA, the business conglomerate run by Cuba’s Armed Forces, sparking a mass exodus of tourism-related businesses from the island nation.
Meanwhile, Cuba is struggling with the effects of a January 2026 executive order issued by U.S. President Donald Trump imposing a fuel blockade against the nation on national security grounds.
The move has resulted in shortages of electricity, fuel, medicine and medical supplies across Cuba, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the World Health Organization, which says emergency care, blood banks, laboratories, immunization programs and maternal and child health services have all been “severely disrupted.”