SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) 鈥� The U.S. government on Thursday announced sanctions against state-owned oil and gas company in a move some experts say will only deepen the island’s crises and hit vulnerable Cubans the hardest.
U.S. Secretary of State asserted that key assets of the company, known as Cupet, were 鈥渦nlawfully expropriated from American owners years ago.鈥�
He also accused 颁耻产补鈥檚 government of weaponizing energy.
鈥淲hile the Cuban people have suffered fuel shortages and blackouts because of decades of under-investment in critical infrastructure, 颁耻产补鈥檚 Communist leaders have diverted energy resources to line their own pockets,鈥� Rubio said in a statement.
He further noted, without providing evidence, that Cuban officials 鈥渞esell countless barrels of scarce energy on the secondary market, hoarding energy supplies for its military, intelligence and repressive forces, and rationing energy as a tool of social control.鈥�
Bruno Rodr铆guez, Cuba’s foreign affairs minister, pushed back against Rubio’s comments in a post on X.
鈥淭he US Secretary of State, driven by ambitions of conquest, presidential aspirations, and the vindictive sentiments of the elitist clique that propelled his political career, is now further tightening the economic and energy blockade against Cuba,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淭o justify this, he doesn鈥檛 resort to excuses prepared by his State Department, but rather to the usual vulgar lies, the most aggressive, ignorant, and rabid rhetoric among 颁耻产补鈥檚 enemies.鈥�
Cuba’s government has previously said that sanctions punish all Cubans and are aimed at strangling the economy to destabilize both the government and its people.
Cupet鈥檚 fuel sales to the public are almost nonexistent and are currently rationed.
William LeoGrande, an expert on Cuba at the American University in the United States, said the latest U.S. measure seems like an effort to block any major oil shipments.
鈥淚t appears that they鈥檙e all in on strangling the Cuban economy,” he said. 鈥淭heir policy is a contradiction. They claim they don鈥檛 want to create a humanitarian crisis, although that鈥檚 exactly what they鈥檙e doing.鈥�
鈥楻isk of triggering mass migration鈥�
Ricardo Herrero, a Cuban economist based in the U.S. and executive director of the Cuba Study Group, a nonpartisan organization based in Washington, D.C., said he was 鈥済enuinely vexed鈥� by the move.
鈥淗ow are private importers supposed to store diesel and get it into vehicles without using CUPET facilities?,鈥� he wrote on X. 鈥淭his undermines what, until this morning, had been a humanitarian priority for the US. Either something much bigger is afoot, or we鈥檝e entered the ‘indiscriminate cruelty’ phase of this policy.鈥�
It’s unclear whether Cupet has any assets in the U.S., although it’s unlikely, LeoGrande said.
He said he could understand the logic of the measure to decentralize the government and strengthen and empower the private sector by enabling it to sell gasoline to state enterprises, or force those enterprises to move toward privatization so they could be oil recipients.
鈥淣ow, the Cubans are not going to privatize Cupet in the hope that might work and that somehow the U.S. might allow oil to go through in that way,鈥� LeoGrande said.
He noted that most private businesses in Cuba are small and don’t have the infrastructure to land an oil tanker, unload the product and distribute it.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e running a huge risk of triggering mass migration,鈥� he said of the U.S. government.
Thursday’s announcement comes almost a week after the U.S. government and other officials, as well as several institutions.
Rubio said in a statement that all property or interests of Cupet located in the U.S. or in possession or control of U.S. people are blocked.
鈥� wants a new future for the Cuban people with greater economic and political freedom and opportunity,鈥� Rubio wrote on X. 鈥淯ntil then, we will continue to target the Communist regime鈥檚 ability to leverage its energy trade to further its corrupt agenda and violently repress the Cuban people.鈥�
Cuba is already struggling under a decades-old embargo and as the U.S. keeps pushing for a change in its economic and political model.
Power outages 鈥� already common given the economic and energetic crisis gripping the island for the past five years 鈥� have only intensified since U.S. President Donald Trump on any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba.
Both countries have acknowledged that , but the scope of them is unknown.
Meanwhile, Trump has been threatening military action in Cuba ever since the and arrested former President Nicol谩s Maduro.
Last Thursday, Trump said Cuba has 鈥渟ort of collapsed鈥� and said 鈥渨e鈥檙e going to handle that as soon as we鈥檝e finished鈥� military operations in Iran.
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