The State Department implemented new sanctions on Cuba, targeting the country’s communist operations.
Among the entities sanctioned are Grupo De Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA), which provides financial services to Cuba, Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera (Lastres), a member of GAESA’s board of directors, and Moa Nickel SA (MNSA), which is involved in the mining sector.
“These sanctions are part of the Trump Administration’s comprehensive campaign to address the pressing national security threats posed by Cuba’s communist regime and hold accountable the regime and those who provide it material or financial support,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of the sanctions. “Just 90 miles from the American homeland, the Cuban regime has brought the island to ruin and auctioned off the island as a platform for foreign intelligence, military and terror operations. Additional designations can be expected in the following days and weeks.”
The action aligns with President Trump’s executive order targeting Cuba’s policies, which are described as an “unusual and extraordinary threat” that “has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States,” to the “national security and foreign policy of the United States.” The order notes, “Not only are these policies, practices, and actions designed to harm the United States, but they are also repugnant to the moral and political values of free and democratic societies.”
Last year, the State Department hit leaders of Cuba’s communist regime with visa restrictions for their roles in the violent repression of peaceful demonstrators, holding them accountable for grave human rights abuses. Visas were denied to leader Miguel Díaz-Canel, Armed Forces Chief Álvaro López Miera, and Interior Minister Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas, and their families.
