Trump’s new Cuba sanctions target foreign enablers of communist regime
Former Treasury sanctions official Max Meizlish says the Trump administration is expanding "unprecedented" pressure beyond Cuba itself by threatening foreign banks and companies tied to the island’s military-linked economic empire.
For 67 years, the Castro regime has survived by convincing the world that communism in Cuba is a permanent condition. It rules through fear, propaganda, prisons and repression while generations of Cubans have been forced to live without freedom, prosperity or hope. But, today, that illusion is crumbling.
As the only Cuban-born member of the United States Congress, I never thought I would witness a moment where the dictatorship in Havana appeared this weak, this isolated and this vulnerable. The regime can no longer hide the reality of its failure. Cuba is suffering blackouts that leave entire cities in darkness, hospitals without medicine and food shortages that have become routine.
What is happening in Cuba is not simply a humanitarian crisis. It is a direct national security threat to the United States. The dictatorship in Havana has transformed itself into a strategic outpost for America’s greatest adversaries.
Communist China has expanded its presence on the island through suspected intelligence and surveillance facilities, capable of monitoring sensitive U.S. military activity across the southeastern United States. Russia continues to coordinate both politically and militarily with Havana. Meanwhile, Iran is deepening its influence across Latin America, using anti-American regimes like Cuba and Venezuela as gateways into the hemisphere. The Cuban dictatorship has become a platform for hostile foreign powers operating just 90 miles from our shores.
TRUMP UNDERSTANDS WHAT WASHINGTON POLITICIANS FORGOT: CUBA IS A MAJOR THREAT TO AMERICA
Former Cuban Vice President Jose Machado and dictator Raul Castro are seen in Cuba. (Yamil Lage/Getty Images)
Now, history is catching up to the architects of the dictatorship themselves. Former Cuban dictator Raúl Castro has been indicted by the United States for his alleged role in the 1996 shootdown of two unarmed Brothers to the Rescue planes, one of the most infamous crimes committed by the regime against civilians.
Four innocent men – Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales – were flying unarmed civilian aircraft in international airspace when Cuban military pilots in Soviet-built MiG fighter jets opened fire with missiles. The attack was not accidental. It was a deliberate operation intended to terrorize the Cuban exile community and silence those who dared oppose the regime. For decades, the families of the victims waited for justice while Havana acted with impunity. Today, the dictatorship is finally being forced to answer for its crimes.
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At the center of the regime’s survival is the Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA), the military-controlled conglomerate that dominates nearly every major sector of the Cuban economy. Hotels, ports, construction, banks, retail stores, remittances and tourism all flow through the hands of the military elite while ordinary Cubans struggle to survive.
That is why the recent arrest in Miami of Adys Lastres Morera, the sister of GAESA’s executive president, was so significant. Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked her residency status after accusing her of benefiting from life in the United States while helping sustain Havana’s communist apparatus. It exposed the hypocrisy of a regime elite that condemns America publicly while privately enjoying the freedoms and opportunities denied to the Cuban people.
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President Donald Trump and Rubio understand something previous administrations refused to accept. Dictatorships do not reform when rewarded. They become stronger. The Obama-era opening handed economic relief and legitimacy to the Cuban regime while political prisoners remained jailed, dissidents were beaten and the military elite expanded its control through entities like GAESA. Strength, not appeasement, is the only language Havana understands.
For decades, the Castro regime cultivated an illusion of absolute invincibility; today, for the first time in a generation, that facade has cracked, leaving the dictatorship profoundly vulnerable thanks to the decisive policies of President Trump.
