US expands Cuba sanctions with targeting of tourism industry

WASHINGTON - The US added Cuba’s Ministry of Tourism to its expanding sanctions list, striking once-again at one of the main economic drivers of the communist-run Caribbean island.

The ministry was one of 10 agencies and entities that were targeted on July 13, according to updated guidance from the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

International travel to the island, just 145km south of Florida, has hit historic lows after the US cut off large fuel deliveries to Cuba, forcing resorts to shut, airlines to cancel flights and international operators to abandon their contracts.

The country’s electric grid is under growing strain with two nationwide blackouts last week alone.

Fuel wholesalers Coreydan and Enetec were also added to the list along with Gecomex, a state-owned trading company and retailer.

The sanctions went beyond economic targets, like the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution, and the Rapid Response Brigades, which the State Department said were used to conduct surveillance on political opponents and suppress dissent.

Under pressure from the Donald Trump administration, the Cuban government rolled out almost 200 economic reform proposals in June.

Among them are plans to allow complete foreign ownership of new tourism developments, and giving operators more authority to import their own supplies – rather than working through the government-run distribution system.

The US has called those reforms “long overdue and ultimately superficial smoke signals.”

The Ministry of Tourism, or Mintur, is the single largest player in the tourism sector after Gaesa, the military-run business conglomerate that was sanctioned in May.

The actions against Gaesa “affected more than half of all hotel operations in Cuba,” Paolo Spadoni, a professor at Augusta University in Georgia who studies the island’s economy, said in a text message.

“With the addition of Mintur to the sanctions list, the scope of US restrictions now extend to virtually 100 per cent of hotel operations on the island.”

In June, Spain’s Meliá Hotels International SA announced that it’s pulling its brands and “immediately” terminating its operating agreements at 15 hotels in Cuba.

Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have been smothering the island with almost weekly sanctions, with the aim of forcing the 67-year-old regime out of power.

Cuba has said it’s willing to make economic reforms and negotiate, but that its political system is not up for debate.

In a statement, the State Department said July 13’s designations were part of a “comprehensive push to end the Cuban regime’s malign activities, both in Cuba and across our hemisphere.”

Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez shot back on X saying the US “continues to intensify its war against the people of Cuba, their living conditions, and their sources of livelihood.” BLOOMBERG