Washington, United States. U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday broadening U.S. sanctions against the Cuban government, White House officials told Reuters. The move aims to increase pressure on Havana.
Scope of the new sanctions
White House officials said the sanctions target people, entities and affiliates that support the Cuban government’s security apparatus, or are complicit in corruption or serious human rights violations, as well as agents, officials or supporters of the government.
It was not immediately clear who had been hit with sanctions under the order, which Reuters first reported.
Potential sectors and secondary sanctions
A copy of the order released by the White House said the sanctions could apply to “any foreign person” operating in the “energy, defense and related materiel, metals and mining, financial services, or security sector of the Cuban economy, or any other sector of the Cuban economy.”
The order authorizes secondary sanctions for conducting or facilitating transactions with those targeted under the order, the officials said.
Cuban government response
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said the new “coercive” measures reinforce what he called the U.S. “brutal, genocidal” blockade against the island.
“The blockade and its reinforcement cause so much harm because of the intimidating and arrogant behavior of the world’s greatest military power,” Diaz-Canel wrote on social media.
Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez, said the sanctions were announced as the island held its traditional May Day celebrations, and said the measures aim to impose “collective punishment on the Cuban people” and that Cubans would not be intimidated.
Assessment of impact
Jeremy Paner, a former sanctions investigator at the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, said the move was the most significant one for non-American companies since the U.S. embargo against Cuba began decades ago.
How do you think the expanded sanctions could affect non-American companies operating in Cuba?