US hits Cuba with new sanctions as island's crises multiply
[September 04, 2026]
By DÁNICA COTO
HAVANA (AP) — The U.S. government on Thursday slapped new sanctions on
Cuba in a fresh push to strangle the island’s economy and deepen its
multiple crises.
Among those hit with sanctions are Fidel Ernesto Castro, grandson of
former President Raúl Castro, and Cuba’s Oil Industry Supply Import
Company, known as Abapet. The company is responsible for importing
special equipment and spare parts needed to sustain Cuba’s crumbling
power grid.
The sanctions aim to push Cuba’s critical machinery offline and
exacerbate its energy crisis, said Brett Erickson, a sanctions expert
and managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors, a consulting firm.
“The U.S. is trying to really tighten the screws as much as possible,”
he said.
“The Trump administration seems to have no seriousness to accept any
change from Cuba other than a toppling of regime. Marco is not going to
let that go,” he added, referring to U.S. Secretary of State Marco
Rubio.
Erickson anticipated that Cuba’s government would try to circumvent the
sanctions “because they have to.”
“They’ll get creative in how they try to procure these maintenance
parts,” he said, warning it would be a costlier alternative, which in
turn would raise inflation and further hurt Cuba’s economy.
Islandwide blackouts have become increasingly common, while daily
outages in Cuba now surpass 24 hours as the aging grid fails and fuel
reserves dwindle ever since U.S. President Donald Trump in late January
threatened tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to the
island.
“The goal in theory is to create so much civilian hardship and suffering
that they have no option but to essentially rise up and topple their
government,” Erickson said. “It is an attempt to cause a humanitarian
crisis.”
Talks earlier this year between the U.S. and Cuba have since halted,
while sanctions have increased in recent months.
Erickson said he expects the U.S. to keep targeting smaller and smaller
state companies to try and push them “into a death spiral.” The U.S. has
previously sanctioned entities including Cuba's state-owned oil and gas
company.
The U.S. State Department made the announcement just hours after Cuban
officials held a press conference to share more details on the historic
economic reforms approved in June.
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A man rests on a sofa on a street in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Aug.
27, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
When asked about the current situation in Cuba, Oscar Pérez-Oliva
Fraga, Cuba’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign
investment, blamed the U.S. government.
“This past year has been very complex, and we know why,” he said.
“The blockade is a genocide.”
He spoke before the sanctions were announced.
Among the Cubans exhausted by the ongoing outages is 49-year-old
Yaqueline Bernal. She said Thursday that she hasn’t had electricity
since Sunday and worries most about the consequences for her eight
young grandchildren.
“If we don’t have power, we don’t have water,” she said. “You really
don’t know what’s going to happen to you.”
Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba's foreign affairs minister, decried the latest
sanctions on X.
“Collective punishment is a crime. So, too, is inflicting suffering
on an entire population through measures coldly calculated to
trigger a humanitarian crisis,” he said. “Enough with the abuse. Put
an end to the blockade once and for all and allow Cuba to live in
peace.”
Eugenio Martínez Enríquez, Cuba’s ambassador in Mexico, called Rubio
“a liar without scruples.”
“We will not forget his crimes,” he wrote on X.
Meanwhile, Rubio asserted on X that those sanctioned “are part of
the corrupt Castro financial and intelligence network.”
“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,” he wrote.
“Trump and I are unwavering in our commitment that Cuba will be
free.”
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