The Trump administration is rolling out what experts describe as the most significant expansion of U.S.sanctions on Cuba in decades.The administration is attempting what supporters say is the first broad application of Cuba-related secondary sanctions against foreign firms, aiming not only at Havana itself but also at foreign companies and banks that continue doing business with the island’s military-linked economic empire. The new framework, established under an executive order signed by President Donald Trump May 1, applies pressure beyond U.S.
companies for the first time, threatening foreign firms with sanctions exposure if they continue operating in key sectors of the Cuban economy linked to Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A., or GAESA.TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PRESSED TO CLOSE CUBA EMBARGO LOOPHOLE AS OIL SET TO RUN OUT WITHIN DAYSSupporters say the move closes a loophole that allowed foreign investors to sustain Cuba’s communist regime while the longstanding U.S.embargo largely restricted Americans.Critics argue the measures risk worsening an already severe humanitarian crisis on the island without meaningfully weakening the government.Demonstrators attemp to burn the Communist Party headquarters in Morón, Cuba, after authorities allegedly opened fire on protesters without prior warning.
(Obtained by Fox News Digital)"At the top of the month, what the Trump administration did was for the first time extend the application of U.S.sanctions from just prohibiting trade between U.S.
firms and U.S.persons and the Cuban island to third-party countries and enablers," Max Meizlish, a former Treasury Department official now serving as a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital in an interview."For the first time ever in a truly unprecedented fashion, that’s the same logic that the administration is now applying to Cuba," he said.The sanctions focus heavily on GAESA, a sprawling military-linked conglomerate that a...