The situation in Cuba is devolving as the island’s corrupt, brutal and anti-American Communist regime continues to prioritize its own total control over the freedom, opportunity and basic wellbeing of the Cuban people.
The Cuban military-controlled conglomerate GAESA has persistently served as the main vector for regime elites to steal the island’s few resources, diverting them for repression, anti-American subversion and spying instead of schools, power plants, and basic necessities for the Cuban people. Today, I designated additional GAESA network entities associated with moving both its money and its physical assets, as well as entities responsible for exploiting Cuba’s mineral and metal reserves for ill-gotten profit.
Anyone providing services to these sanctioned actors is at risk of being sanctioned themselves. Foreign banks and other companies that provide services to these entities should freeze those activities immediately.
Today, I am sanctioning Cuba’s state-owned energy company, Unión Cuba-Petróleo (CUPET), under President Trump’s EO 14404. Cuba’s Communist elites have weaponized energy as a tool of social control and kleptocratic profit.
For decades, the regime has stolen and hoarded available fuel — using it for the Castros’ private jet, the security services forces used to repress the Cuban people, to keep empty tourist hotels lit up, and to bus people in for fake protests and political stunts — all while the Cuban people have suffered blackouts and waited weeks to fill their cars.
President Trump wants a new future for the Cuban people with greater economic and political freedom and opportunity. Until then, we will continue to target the Communist regime’s ability to leverage its energy trade to further its corrupt agenda and violently repress the Cuban people.
@GuntherEagleman Grandpa never respected others opinions, he silenced them. Fully furnished apartment, stocked fridge, electricity on, fenced property, beer at hand (a luxury for most cubans), and on top of that speaking freely to the international press. His Castro privilege is so loud…
The brave people of Cuba have just taken over the headquarters of the Communist Party in Ciego de Ávila.
These rebels then set fire to the building.
Cubans see the freedom being brought to other nations and now want theirs.
Entraron a la sede del Partido Comunista en Morón, sacaron nuestra bandera y la ondearon.
No hay imagen más simbólica que esta... lo ocurrido ayer marca el inicio de una nueva etapa para #Cuba.
Podrán intentar silenciar a estos muchachos... la chispa ya está prendida.