US targets more Cuban entities

WASHINGTON:

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a new wave of sanctions targeting Cuban entities, on Thursday, including the country’s Ministry of Construction and three top leaders of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), in the latest bid to cripple its government.

Several state-owned enterprises working in the metals and mining sector, which “sustain the regime’s repressive apparatus through control of key economic sectors,” were also sanctioned, Rubio said. “The Trump Administration will not tolerate the Cuban regime’s efforts to fund its repression,” he added.

The ICAP’s now-sanctioned president, Fernando Gonzalez Llort, was convicted in the US of being a Cuban spy and had spent 15 years in prison.