Cuba says Trump’s new sanctions on its economy amount to ‘collective punishment’ | Cuba

Cuba’s government said new sanctions imposed on the island by Donald Trump amounted to “collective punishment,” as an enormous May 1 march outside the U.S. Embassy in Havana vowed to “defend the homeland.”

The US president said in an executive order on Friday that he would impose sanctions on people involved in broad parts of the Cuban economy as he seeks to increase pressure on Havana after ousting Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro earlier this year.

The latest sanctions were “collective punishment” of the nation’s people, said Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez. “We strongly reject the recent unilateral coercive measures adopted by the #UnitedStates government,” he posted on X in English.

Trump did pondering the takeover of Cubawhich lies 145 km from Florida and has been under an almost continuous US trade embargo since Fidel Castro led a communist revolution in 1959.

Trump used a speech in Florida on Friday to suggest again that the US could launch operations against Cuba.

“On the way back from Iran, we’ll have one of our big ones – maybe the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, the biggest in the world, we’ll have it come in, stop about 100 yards off shore and they’ll say, ‘Thank you very much. We give up.’

The economic situation worsened for Cuba since Washington imposed a fuel embargo in January, with only one Russian oil tanker makes it through since then. Supply shortages and power outages have become the norm, and tourism – once Cuba’s most profitable industry – has plummeted.

Trump’s Friday order targets people known to be “operating in or operating in the energy, defense and related materiel, metals and mining, financial services or security sectors of the Cuban economy, or any other sector of the Cuban economy,” as well as Cuban officials judged to have been involved in “serious human rights abuses” or corruption.

Jeremy Paner, a former sanctions investigator at the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, said the move was the most significant for non-US companies since the US embargo against Cuba began decades ago.

“Oil and gas, mining companies and banks that have carefully separated their Cuba operations from the United States are no longer protected,” said Paner, who is now a partner at Hughes Hubbard + Reed, a law firm.

Friday’s sanctions are coming despite moves towards dialogue between the two countries, with senior US officials visiting the island for talks in April.

The US has long demanded that Cuba open up its state-run economy, pay reparations for properties expropriated by the government of former leader Fidel Castro and hold “free and fair” elections. Cuba has said its form of socialist government is not ready for negotiation.

Friday’s new measures took effect during May 1 celebrations that saw large crowds in Havana march on the US embassy under the slogan “Defend the Homeland.” The march was led by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and former revolutionary leader Raúl Castro.

The day before, Diaz-Canel called on Cubans to mobilize “against the genocidal blockade and the gross imperial threats to our country”, referring to US actions and rhetoric.

With Agence France-Presse and Reuters