The United States is toughening up: it has now sanctioned the president of Cuba Miguel Díaz Canel and members of the Castro family

As president, Díaz-Canel is the institutional face of the system, the visible figure of a dictatorial power that has been ruling Cuba for 67 years.

The measure announced by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) adds five individuals and five entities to the List of Specially Designated Nationals (SDN), which implies the blocking of assets and interests subject to US jurisdiction and restrictions on carrying out transactions with North American people or companies.

Among those sanctioned are President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, his wife Lis Cuesta Peraza and his stepson Manuel Anido Cuesta and Lis’ son. Besides Raúl Alejandro Castro Calis, son of Cuban Colonel Alejandro Castro Espín, appears on the list, both are grandson and son respectively of Raúl Castro.

The inclusion of Díaz-Canel and several members of his entourage represents one of the most direct actions taken by Washington against the Cuban power structure since Trump’s return to the White House.

In addition to personal sanctions, the Trump government this time targets organizations considered fundamental in the political, military and economic structure of the island.

Among them are the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) created in 1960 and considered one of the main mechanisms of mobilization and political surveillance of the regime and the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), an organization in charge of relations with international solidarity groups and created on December 30, 1960.

The list includes the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR), founded just months after the revolutionary triumph of 1959, the company Minera La Victoria SA founded on August 14, 2020 and dedicated to the extraction of non-ferrous metallic minerals, as well as the Amistur Cuba SA travel agency created on January 19, 1996.

The United States has maintained an embargo against the communist island since 1962, and under Donald Trump’s second term the siege has been increasing.

Washington is combining economic sanctions against figures and companies of the regimelegal measures, such as the historic indictment of Raúl Castro, 95, for the downing of two small planes in 1996, and a de facto oil blockade since the beginning of the year.

Cuba is experiencing its worst economic and humanitarian crisis since the triumph of the Castro Revolution of 1959. Washington and Havana maintain negotiations for a way out of the crisiswhich for now does not bear fruit.

Washington accuses Cuba, located 90 miles from Florida, of being a threat to its security, while Havana claims to be willing to negotiate without giving up what it considers its sovereignty.