The US State Department announced on Thursday that the US was imposing new sanctions on Cuba, ramping up an embargo that has a devastating impact on Cuban civilians.
The State Department said it was sanctioning eight entities and two individuals, and declaring five ships as “blocked property.” It claimed that the targets are “associated with the Cuban regime’s oil shipping networks, Cuban elites, state-owned import and technical-support entities, and China-based suppliers of the regime’s military forces. ”
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also announced a new measure that “authorizes sanctions against any foreign person operating or having operated in the manufacturing, technology, electronics, and marine sectors of the Cuban economy,” a sweeping designation that could expose foreign companies to US sanctions for conducting business in major sectors of the Cuban economy.
The US significantly ramped up its decades-old embargo of Cuba following the US attack on Venezuela in January by cutting off Venezuelan oil shipments and also pressuring Mexico to halt oil exports to the island, causing daily major blackouts.
Cuban doctors told The New York Times back in March that patients were dying due to the US blockade, as the conditions at hospitals caused by the fuel shortages were leading to preventable deaths.
The ramped-up blockade has come with threats of war, as President Trump has said he thinks he will have the “honor” of “taking Cuba.” The Pentagon has also placed military assets in the region for a potential attack, but so far the administration has held off, as it’s been bogged down in the Iran war, and it has no clear path to regime change in Havana.
