Additional Sanctions Designations Targeting the Corrupt Cuban Communist Regime and Its Financial Backers

The Communist Cuban regime continues to pose a deep multifaceted threat to U.S. national security and hemispheric stability, as the Department chronicled just this week in a report detailing seven decades of the regime’s subversion and attempts to debase and disrupt the American polity.

Today, pursuant to President Trump’s Executive Order (E.O.) 14404, I am designating nine entities and two individuals whose activities perpetuate the regime’s control over Cuba’s energy, financial, and exploitative overseas medical labor sectors.  Those sanctioned today have also tried to evade our prior sanctions on the Cuban regime and its enablers.

These designations include four entities associated with sanctions evasion efforts linked to U.S.-designated Grupo De Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA), three entities operating in Cuba’s energy sector, and two entities and two individuals responsible for the exploitation and forced labor of Cuban medical workers through the regime’s overseas medical brigades.

The Department’s actions are being taken pursuant to E.O. 14404, which authorizes sweeping sanctions on Cuba, including against persons who support the Cuban regime’s security apparatus and those responsible for repression in Cuba and other threats to U.S. national security.  These actions also further both E.O. 14380, “Addressing Threats to the United States by the Government of Cuba” and the National Security Presidential Memorandum 5 (NSPM-5), which directs the Executive Branch to improve human rights, encourage the rule of law, foster free markets and free enterprise, and promote democracy in Cuba.  For more information on today’s action, please see the Department of State’s Fact Sheet.