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The State Department has announced new sanctions targeting five Cuban entities and Fidel Ernesto Castro, the 31-year-old grandson of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro.

Getting into it: Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the designations Thursday under Executive Order 14404, hitting Cuba’s financial, mining and energy sectors. They cover Banco Exterior de Cuba, a state-owned bank, two nickel mining companies, and two energy companies, including Abapet, the state importer that handles the machinery and replacement parts Cuba’s aging grid depends on. Castro was designated for what the State Department described as “an adult family member of other sanctioned members of the Castro family.”

Secretary Marco Rubio participates in the North Atlantic Council meeting in Helsingborg, Sweden, May 22, 2026. (Official State Department photo by Freddie Everett)

In a statement, Rubio said, “Cuba’s Communist regime elites preside over a failed state where ordinary Cubans go hungry while the Castro family and other insiders enrich themselves through sanctions evasion and other illicit schemes and seek to export subversive Marxist ideology to the United States and other states in the Western Hemisphere. Trump and I are unwavering in our commitment that Cuba will be free.”

Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez called it collective punishment and said it is also a crime to inflict “suffering on an entire population through measures coldly calculated to trigger a humanitarian crisis.” Earlier the same day, in an interview with state newspaper Granma, he said Cuba does not threaten US national security or the US economy and has no wish to. Cuba’s ambassador to Mexico dismissed Rubio as “a liar without scruples.” Deputy Prime Minister Óscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, speaking before the sanctions dropped, described the blockade as genocide.

The sanctions land on top of a fuel blockade the administration put in place in late January, when Trump warned he would tariff any nation still shipping fuel to the island. Since then, the grid has deteriorated badly, and nationwide blackouts have become common, regularly lasting more than 24 hours. In June, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said the restrictions were “directly harming Cubans” and urged an end to them.

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