Dear Editor,
The United States has significantly escalated its economic offensive against Cuba, with President Donald Trump signing a sweeping executive order that broadens sanctions to target not only Cuban officials, but their adult family members and the international financial networks that sustain them.
The order authorizes the U.S. Treasury to freeze assets, impose visa bans, and penalize foreign banks that facilitate transactions linked to sanctioned Cuban individuals and entities, effectively extending Washington’s reach deep into the global financial system.
Issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the directive builds on a national emergency declared in January and signals a more aggressive phase in U.S. efforts to isolate Havana amid its worsening economic crisis.
Under the new framework, sanctions can be applied to key figures within Cuba’s political leadership, security apparatus, and economic sectors, as well as individuals accused of corruption or human rights abuses tied to the state. Notably, the measures extend to adult family members of those designated, an expansion that raises the personal stakes for Cuba’s ruling elite.
In a move likely to reverberate across global banking systems, the order also targets foreign financial institutions. Banks that conduct or facilitate significant transactions for sanctioned Cuban entities, including the Central Bank of Cuba risk losing access to U.S. correspondent or payable through accounts. This effectively threatens their ability to clear U.S. dollar transactions, a powerful deterrent in international finance.
The policy intensifies pressure on Cuba at a moment of acute vulnerability. The island is grappling with severe fuel shortages, recurring nationwide blackouts, and disruptions to international travel. Washington’s earlier actions, including halting Venezuelan oil shipments and pressuring Mexico to cease exports, have compounded the crisis.
The latest order builds on Executive Order 14380, signed January 29, which introduced a separate tariff mechanism targeting countries supplying oil to Cuba and declared the Cuban government an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security.
While the White House has framed the sanctions as a necessary response to Cuba’s alleged support for hostile actors and regional instability, it has yet to disclose the first wave of individuals and institutions to be designated under the expanded authorities.
Behind the policy lies an increasingly blunt posture from Trump himself. In remarks that have drawn international scrutiny, he openly floated the idea of exerting direct control over the island, stating in March, “Taking Cuba in some form… whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it.”
Despite the hardening rhetoric, diplomatic channels remain open. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, in a recent interview, acknowledged the possibility of dialogue but rejected U.S. demands tied to changes in Cuba’s political system, underscoring the entrenched divide between the two governments. Yet, amid this hardline approach, there are faint signals of dialogue. Pres. Diaz Canel has acknowledged that discussions with the United States remain possible, though difficult. That fragile opening, however, risks being suffocated under the weight of escalating sanctions and maximalist demands.
History has shown that sanctions, particularly broad and prolonged ones, rarely achieve their stated political objectives without imposing significant collateral damage. They entrench hardship, strain social systems, and often harden the very governments they seek to weaken.
Cuba today stands at a perilous crossroads. What it needs is not further isolation, but pragmatic engagement, solutions that recognize both the political complexities and the humanitarian realities on the ground.
The question that must now be asked is not whether the United States has the power to impose such measures. It clearly does.
The real question is whether it has the moral clarity to recognize when that power is being exercised without sufficient regard for human consequence.
Because when policy begins to disregard people, it ceases to be strategy and becomes suffering by design.
Ultimately, the real impact of the sanctions will depend on enforcement specifically, which individuals are targeted and whether global banks choose compliance over risk. If widely observed, the measures could further choke Cuba’s already fragile economy. If not, they risk becoming another symbolic escalation in a long-running geopolitical standoff.
For now, Washington has made one thing clear: economic pressure on Havana is not easing, it is accelerating.