U.S. sanctions 11 Cuban officials, targets intelligence agency

Washington widened its Cuba pressure campaign by sanctioning 11 regime-aligned officials and three state bodies, including the Ministry of Interior, the national police and the island’s main intelligence agency. The move was designed to hit the machinery that keeps the state’s security apparatus moving, but its immediate force may be felt most outside Havana, in the banks, shippers and insurers that touch Cuba-linked money.

The State Department said the sanctions covered 11 Cuban regime-aligned actors and three entities: the Ministry of Interior of Cuba, known as MININT; the Policía Nacional Revolucionaria, or PNR; and the Directorate of Intelligence of Cuba, or DGI. MININT controls Cuba’s police, internal security forces, intelligence agencies and prison system. The department said the PNR has operated mobile prisons and violently suppressed protests, while the DGI is Cuba’s primary intelligence agency.

The action followed Executive Order 14404, signed on May 1 and published in the Federal Register on May 7. The order gives the U.S. government broad authority to block property and interests in property tied to foreign persons operating in Cuba’s energy, defense, metals and mining, financial services, security and other sectors the Treasury may later designate. It also reaches anyone or any entity that materially assists the Cuban government, and it raises the risk for foreign financial institutions that conduct or facilitate transactions for blocked persons.

That is where the sanctions bite hardest. The White House and State Department are not just naming officials; they are trying to make it more expensive for outsiders to do business with the Cuban state’s security and economic network. The practical effect is likely to land less on public life inside Cuba than on the financial channels that keep imports, shipping and other cross-border transactions moving.

Miguel Díaz-Canel pushed back within hours, saying no one in Cuba’s government or military institutions has assets or property protected under U.S. jurisdiction. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the sanctions were meant to restrict the Cuban government’s ability to suppress the will of the Cuban people, and signaled more actions in the following days and weeks.

The broader picture is an escalation rather than a one-off. The administration has framed the campaign as a response to repression in Cuba and to threats the U.S. says the island has long posed through intelligence and security activity. For now, the strongest pressure point is clear: not travel or tourism, but the security, intelligence and finance systems that keep the Cuban state insulated and funded.