Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions Thursday against five Cuban entities and eight individuals tied to the regime’s efforts to import weapons and maintain military ties with Russia and China.
The designations target subsidiaries of GAESA, the military-run conglomerate that controls a large share of Cuba’s economy, along with a military holding company and an aircraft repair business. Rubio acted under Executive Order 14404, signed by President Trump in May, which authorizes sanctions on those responsible for repression in Cuba.
“The Cuban Communist regime is a state sponsor of terrorism that uses its military and intelligence apparatus to spy on the United States, provide material support to violent radicals and terrorist groups, and spread poisonous Marxist ideology within our borders and polity,” Rubio said in a State Department statement, adding that Cuba serves as “a staging ground for other U.S. adversaries such as Russia, China and Iran to conduct operations against the United States.”
Among those designated: Alvaro Lopez Miera, minister of Cuba’s Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, Chief of the General Staff Roberto Legra Sotolongo, and Cuba’s military attaches to Russia and China. The sanctioned entities include Tecnoimport and Tecnotex, both GAESA subsidiaries, the Military Industry Union, the Yuri Gagarin Military Industrial Enterprise, and Duna S.A. State Department officials said Tecnotex has repaired Russian helicopters and worked with North Korea in the past.
“Anyone supporting, sponsoring, or providing services to these sanctioned actors is at risk of being sanctioned themselves,” Rubio wrote on X. “Foreign banks and other companies that provide services to, or hold funds for, these entities should terminate those activities immediately.”
Any assets the designated individuals or entities hold in the United States, or under the control of U.S. citizens, are now frozen. Transactions involving their property are prohibited unless specifically authorized.
Thursday’s action follows an eight-month U.S. oil blockade against Cuba and builds on earlier sanctions this year against GAESA and MINFAR directly. The administration has said it hopes economic pressure will push a leadership change on the island.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel addressed the pressure campaign in a speech before parliament earlier this week. “The path is difficult, the situation is complex, but the will to triumph is unshakable,” he said. “We are not a nation in dispute nor a colony; we are a sovereign people who has decided its destiny.”
Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, pushed back on Rubio directly in a statement posted to X, calling the pressure campaign the work of “a small but powerful cabal in Southern Florida” pursuing “narrow ambitions of vengeance.” Cuban authorities did not respond to a request for comment on the specific sanctions.
Rubio has led a series of escalating actions against Havana since January, when the administration declared a national emergency over any country supplying oil to the island, a move that has contributed to frequent power outages across Cuba.
