Pressure on Havana | USA announces tougher sanctions against Cuba

US President Donald Trump wants to bring Cuba to its knees with increasingly harsh measures. Photo: Ramon Espinosa/AP/dpa Washington.  The US has announced tougher sanctions against Cuba, targeting certain financial transactions and travel by US citizens to the island. As the OFAC agency, which reports to the Treasury Department, announced on Tuesday, the new punitive measures are aimed at any “indirect” financial transactions with sanctioned Cuban entities. Several of them have connections to the security apparatus and to the military-controlled Gaesa company, against which the USA has previously imposed sanctions.

In addition, OFAC is revoking an approval for so-called U-turn transactions. This had allowed US banks to process dollar payments related to Cuba since 2024, provided that both the origin and destination of the payment were outside the US and no US citizens were involved.

The emerging Cuban private sector is also affected by the tightening: The new regulations revoke the permission granted to US banks under former Democratic President Joe Biden to "maintain accounts in the name of a Cuban citizen who works as an independent entrepreneur in the private sector." 

The new regulations also restrict travel categories that were permitted to US citizens during the term of former President Barack Obama. According to the new regulations, a permit is now required for business meetings and trips intended for cultural exchange.

Against the background of the severe economic crisis in Cuba, the Caribbean country opened several sectors of its economy to private companies in June. According to a government decree, large private companies and foreign investments in the private sector should be permitted in the future. But the reforms do not go far enough for Washington.

Under US President Donald Trump, the US government massively increased pressure on Cuba and is calling for economic and political reforms. At the same time, Trump repeatedly thought out loud about “taking over” the country. The USA describes the communist-ruled state 150 kilometers off the coast of the US state of Florida as an “extraordinary threat” to its national security. 

Cuba is in the worst economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Trump recently massively exacerbated the crisis with an oil blockade.

The US military captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January and brought him to the US. Washington then ensured that Venezuela, Cuba's most important oil supplier, stopped supplying Havana. Cuba is located 145 kilometers from Florida and has been subject to a US trade embargo almost continuously since the communist revolution led by Fidel Castro in 1959.  AFP/nd

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