The State Department on Thursday sanctioned Cuba’s state-owned oil and gas company, Union Cuba-Petroleo (CUPET), as the Trump administration tightens economic pressure on the island nation’s communist government amid what officials describe as an escalating confrontation.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the action, citing President Trump’s May 1 executive order expanding sanctions against government officials, agents, and material supporters of the Cuban regime. Rubio said CUPET assets “were unlawfully expropriated from American owners years ago.”
Rubio accused the Cuban government of using its control over energy as a tool of oppression rather than to serve its own people.
“As regular Cubans wait for weeks to fill their cars and suffer relentless blackouts, the Castro family flies around on a private jet, the government buses in fake protesters for publicity stunts, and the regime prioritizes keeping the power on in luxury tourist hotels,” Rubio said in a State Department statement Thursday.
According to Rubio, Cuba’s government has been “reselling countless barrels of scarce energy on the secondary market, hoarding energy supplies for its military, intelligence and repressive forces, and rationing energy as a tool of social control.”
The CUPET sanctions are the latest step in a sustained pressure campaign that includes an effective fuel blockade on Cuba. The Department of Justice in April indicted former Cuban President Raul Castro on murder charges. The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and its escort ships remain deployed in the Caribbean.
Trump has not ruled out military action. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, during a visit Wednesday to U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, told troops the renamed Department of War is ready for whatever comes next.
“No matter what, the Department of War is going to be prepared and postured for any possible contingency,” Hegseth said.
Trump has said the administration has Cuba “on our mind” and has suggested military intervention remains an option.
“My commitment is ironclad: America will not tolerate a rogue state harboring hostile foreign military, intelligence and terror operations just 90 miles from the American homeland,” Trump said in remarks last month. “We will not rest until the people of Cuba once again have the freedom their forefathers fought so valiantly to establish over 100 years ago.”
Rubio, who is Cuban American, said last month that the likelihood of successful negotiations between Washington and Havana is “not high.”
