US sanctions Cuban president, ‘regime-controlled' luxury hotels
In a post on X, Rubio said the State Department would be 'restricting visas for Cuban regime figureheads', including President Diaz-Canel, Defence Minister Alvaro Lopez Miera, Interior Minister Lazaro Alberto Alvarez Casas, and their 'cronies' for their 'role in the Cuban regime's brutality toward the Cuban people'.
Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, also announced that the State Department has added the Torre K hotel to its restricted list of entities in order to 'prevent US dollars from funding the Cuban regime's repression'.
The Cuban government has promoted the luxury high-rise Torre K in central Havana as a symbol of modernisation. But the government has faced criticism for its large investment in luxury hotels amid a severe economic crisis in the nominally socialist one-party state.
'While the Cuban people suffer shortages of food, water, medicine, and electricity, the regime lavishes money on its insiders,' Rubio said.
Ten other 'regime-linked properties' were also added to the State Department's List of Prohibited Accommodations, it said in a statement.
The statement said the sanctions were being enacted in 'solidarity with the Cuban people and the island's political prisoners', citing the Cuban government's brutal crackdown on the July 2021 demonstrations – the largest since the Cuban revolution in the 1950s.
The police crackdown resulted in one death and dozens of wounded protesters.
'Four years ago, thousands of Cubans peacefully took to the streets to demand a future free from tyranny. The Cuban regime responded with violence and repression, unjustly detaining thousands, including over 700 who are still imprisoned and subjected to torture or abuse,' the State Department said.
Rubio also accused Cuba of torturing pro-democracy activist Jose Daniel Ferrer, whose bail was revoked as he was taken into custody alongside fellow dissident Felix Navarro in April.
'The United States demands immediate proof of life and the release of all political prisoners,' Rubio said.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez slammed the latest measures as part of a 'ruthless economic war' being waged by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
'The USA is capable of imposing migratory sanctions against revolutionary leaders and maintaining a prolonged and ruthless economic war against Cuba, but it lacks the ability to break the will of these people or their leaders,' he said on X.
In January, then-US President Joe Biden had removed Cuba from the blacklist of countries sponsoring terrorism.
But Trump returned the country to the blacklist immediately after returning to the White House as he resumed his 'maximum pressure' campaign against Cuba that typified his foreign policy during his first term.
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