The Trump administration steps up pressure on Cuba and imposes sanctions on leaders accused of promoting 'Marxist networks'
The new sanctions target leaders of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), which, according to the Secretary of State, exploits educational exchanges by "identifying, cultivating, and radicalizing subversives."
Marco Rubio in Pasay, Metro Manila/ Brendan Smialowski
The Department of State imposed new sanctions against officials and entities from Cuba. In a statement, Secretary Marco Rubio accused Havana of using cultural and educational organizations to promote networks of Marxist influence.
The new sanctions mark the latest escalation in the Trump administration's policy of pressuring Miguel Díaz-Canel's regime. Specifically, they target leaders of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), which, according to the Secretary of State, exploits educational exchanges by "identifying, cultivating, and radicalizing subversives."
Among those targeted by the sanctions is Fernando González Llort, president of ICAP. According to the letter, González "served 15 years in prison in the United States for his participation in the infamous Red Avispa—an extensive illegal Cuban espionage network dismantled in Florida in the late 1990s." The organization's first vice president, Noemí Ramona Rabaza Fernández, and its director for North America, Leima Martínez Freire, were also sanctioned.
">The Cuban regime has spent decades using front groups to infiltrate, corrupt, and radicalize Americans. Today, I'm sanctioning the leadership of ICAP, which is one of the primary organizations involved in these efforts—including convicted Cuban spy Fernando González Llort—and…
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) August 20, 2026
The sanctions froze their assets under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibited U.S. individuals and companies from transacting with sanctioned parties unless authorized by the government.
"The Cuban regime has long sponsored a vast subversive network in the United States aimed at identifying, cultivating, and radicalizing subversives, largely operating under the pretext of educational or cultural exchange. Just days ago, the regime attempted to use Communist kingpin and despot Fidel Castro's 100th birthday to reinvigorate this subversive network, ferrying a new brigade of international sympathizers to Havana to network with regime officials," Rubio said in a statement.
"The Trump Administration will not stand by while a hostile foreign power seeks to exploit our freedoms – none of which are afforded to its people – by misleading and corrupting American citizens with lies, spy tradecraft, and other malfeasance as part of the regime's raison d’être of exporting Marxism, racial resentment, and Communist violence across the world," he added.
LATEST
