This Thursday, the United States sanctioned five state entities and eight Cuban officials, including the Minister of the Armed Forces, Alvaro Lopez Miera, whom it accuses of facilitating military cooperation with Washington's adversaries and the acquisition of weapons for the island's Army.

“Today, the (Donald) Trump Administration adopts new measures to protect our national security by imposing sanctions on entities and individuals that facilitate Havana's military relations and arms shipments to the Cuban regime,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

These new sanctions, a new twist in the pressures of the Government of the American president, to force economic and political changes on the communist island, are directed against the company Tecnoimport, the commercial company Duna S.A., the Union of Military Industry (UIM) and the military industrial company Yuri Gagarin.

Also included in this list is the Cuban Exporting and Importing Company of Specialized Technical Services, Articles and Products (Tecnotex), a subsidiary of the military business conglomerate Gaesa, previously sanctioned by the United States.

Among the officials appointed by Washington are the Minister of the Cuban Armed Forces, the Chief of Staff, Roberto Legra Sotolongo, the head of Foreign Relations of that ministry, Jose Antonio Remon Rodriguez, and its economic director, Oscar Enrique Biosca Gallego.

The new sanctions are also directed against the Cuban military attaches in Russia, Monica Milian Gomez, and in China, Waldo Perez Cortes, and the general directors of the UIM, Roberto Jesus Viciana Mousset and of Tecnoimport, Heriberto Sanchez Alleyne.

According to Rubio, “the Cuban communist regime is a state sponsor of terrorism that uses its military and intelligence apparatus to spy on the United States,” in addition to “serving as a platform” for Washington's adversaries “such as Russia, China and Iran to carry out operations against the country.”

“Cuba's military and intelligence institutions are also the main instruments of internal repression and foci of kleptocracy, mainly through Gaesa,” added the politician of Cuban origin.

These actions leave the property and assets of the entities and persons mentioned under US jurisdiction and prohibit transactions by US persons or institutions with them.

The new sanctions join those directed against the current Cuban president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, and the criminal charges against the former president, Raul Castro, within Trump's campaign to drown a Cuba already in crisis.

Washington maintains an oil blockade that has aggravated the serious economic and humanitarian situation in the country, caused mainly by years of management by the island Government and has decreed measures against foreign entities that operate in vital sectors of energy, defense, mining and financial services in the Caribbean nation.

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