Secretary of State Marco Rubio came out swinging Thursday, announcing sanctions against ten targets connected to Cuba’s Marxist regime, including crude oil shippers, state-owned enterprises, and China-based suppliers arming the Cuban military. That’s right, China. Because nothing says “completely normal geopolitics” like Beijing helping a communist island dictatorship 90 miles off the Florida coast stay armed and dangerous.
Rubio laid it out plainly in his announcement: “The United States will not tolerate subversive communist networks in our hemisphere. The Marxist Cuban regime relies on a web of state-owned enterprises, joint ventures, and offshore intermediaries to keep its systems running, and its foreign backers supply the military equipment that helps sustain the regime’s military forces and enables persistent threats to the American homeland.” No hedging, no diplomatic throat-clearing. Just facts and consequences.
The ten targets include eight entities and two individuals. One of them is Guillermo Faustino Rodriguez Lopez Calleja, described as part of Cuba crude oil sanctions network of offshore shipping companies moving Cuban crude oil in and out of the island. The other individual named is Any Rodriguez Lastres, daughter of previously sanctioned Grupo de Administracion Empresarial president Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera. So apparently running a regime’s financial empire is a family business now. The Treasury Department also issued a determination authorizing sanctions on any foreign person operating in Cuba’s electronics, manufacturing, marine, and technology sectors.
Rubio’s press release made clear exactly what the Cuban ruling class has been doing with the island’s resources: hoarding them. “Cuba’s ruling elite is hoarding the island’s energy, shipping, and technology resources for its own enrichment, leaving the Cuban people to contend with blackouts, shortages, and a stagnant economy,” he wrote. While regular Cubans sit in the dark with empty shelves, the regime’s insiders are running opaque offshore networks and pocketing the proceeds. Marxism in action, folks.
All of this is happening under President Trump’s Executive Order 14404, titled “Imposing Sanctions on Those Responsible for Repression in Cuba and for Threats to United States National Security and Foreign Policy.” Five vessels associated with the sanctioned targets were also identified as blocked property. The Trump administration made its position crystal clear: it will not stand by while Cuba serves as, in Rubio’s words, “a staging ground for a global coalition of hostile anti-American actors to threaten, spy on, and plot against the United States and its interests.
This is a developing story, and more details are expected as the administration continues rolling out its Cuba policy. One thing is already obvious: the days of looking the other way while communist regimes run influence networks and military supply chains right on America’s doorstep are over. Peace through strength has a new address, and it’s the State Department.
