By Sarah Morland
Sept 3 (Reuters) – The U.S. imposed new sanctions on Thursday on five Cuban companies and the grandson of 95-year-old revolutionary leader Raul Castro, as the Trump administration mounts economic pressure on the Communist-run Caribbean island.
The U.S. State Department said it was sanctioning Fidel Ernesto Castro, 31, for being an adult family member of other sanctioned members of the Castro family.
His grandfather was a foundational figure of the 1959 Cuban revolution and led the country starting in 2006, when his brother, Fidel Castro, fell ill. He served as president until 2018 but continued to wield significant influence in government.
Washington also issued sanctions on the Banco Exterior de Cuba, a state-owned bank, two companies involved in Cuba’s nickel mining industry and two companies active in Cuba’s struggling energy sector, including an oil import company.
DIRE SITUATION IN CUBA: U.N.
The U.S. has since early this year imposed a blockade on Cuban access to oil, threatening tariffs on goods from countries that continue to ship supplies there.
This has exacerbated an already weak power grid, causing repeated nationwide blackouts and further limiting the transport of goods and people’s access to healthcare. The United Nations has warned the situation could become a humanitarian crisis.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the latest sanctions were a response to Cuban elites allegedly enriching themselves at ordinary people’s expense and seeking “to export subversive Marxist ideology to the United States.”
“Cuba’s Communist regime elites preside over a failed state where ordinary Cubans go hungry,” he said in a post on X.
Cuba’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In an interview published in state-run newspaper Granma earlier on Thursday, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez accused Washington of being responsible for the crisis in Cuba and fabricating the threats the country poses.
“The truth is that Cuba does not threaten U.S. national security or the U.S. economy, nor does it wish to do so,” he said. “The accusation that Cuba allegedly sponsors terrorism actually reveals the U.S. government’s lack of seriousness.”
Washington has said its measures against Cuba are a response to a national security threat, saying the Cuban government supports terrorist groups and limits human rights. It also said it wants to change the current power structure.
Later on Thursday, Cuba unveiled new regulations aimed at attracting foreign investment, trade and tourism to the Caribbean island as it continues to adopt free-market reforms amid U.S. pressure and the economic crisis.
(Reporting by Sarah Morland and Iñigo Alexander in Mexico City AND Bhargav Acharya and Ismail Shakil in Ottawa; Editing by Susan Heavey, Iñigo Alexander, Rod Nickel)
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