The United States announced new economic sanctions on Thursday targeting nine Cuban state-owned mining, metal and construction companies alongside three leaders at the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, in a move Secretary of State Marco Rubio said was aimed at entities helping to sustain Havana's repressive apparatus.
The Treasury and State departments posted the notice targeting firms including GEOMINSAL, a nickel producer, the Ministry of Construction and several import enterprises. Rubio accused ICAP of directing a vast subversive network in the United States aimed at identifying and radicalizing Americans, alleging the Cuban government tried to expand those efforts around the centenary of Fidel Castro's birth.
The measures follow a de facto oil blockade imposed in January after the military raid that ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. UN experts have warned the fuel restrictions amount to illegal energy starvation harming the island's most vulnerable residents.