US blockade of Cuba

[Andy_Ross]

Secretary Marco Rubio
@SecRubio
Today, I am sanctioning Cuba’s state-owned energy company, Unión Cuba-Petróleo (CUPET), under President Trump’s EO 14404. Cuba’s Communist elites have weaponized energy as a tool of social control and kleptocratic profit.

For decades, the regime has stolen and hoarded available fuel — using it for the Castros’ private jet, the security services forces used to repress the Cuban people, to keep empty tourist hotels lit up, and to bus people in for fake protests and political stunts — all while the Cuban people have suffered blackouts and waited weeks to fill their cars.

President Trump wants a new future for the Cuban people with greater economic and political freedom and opportunity. Until then, we will continue to target the Communist regime’s ability to leverage its energy trade to further its corrupt agenda and violently repress the Cuban people

link

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Secretary Marco Rubio
@SecRubio
Today, I am sanctioning Cuba’s state-owned energy company, Unión Cuba-Petróleo (CUPET), under President Trump’s EO 14404. Cuba’s Communist elites have weaponized energy as a tool of social control and kleptocratic profit.

For decades, the regime has stolen and hoarded available fuel — using it for the Castros’ private jet, the security services forces used to repress the Cuban people, to keep empty tourist hotels lit up, and to bus people in for fake protests and political stunts — all while the Cuban people have suffered blackouts and waited weeks to fill their cars.

President Trump wants a new future for the Cuban people with greater economic and political freedom and opportunity. Until then, we will continue to target the Communist regime’s ability to leverage its energy trade to further its corrupt agenda and violently repress the Cuban people

link

This is embarrassingly desperate. How is anyone supposed to take it seriously? Why isn't fuel freely available? Because of the US fuel blockade. Kleptocratic profit? Who are these kleptocrats selling their hoarded fuel to? Each other?

I mean, imagine if anyone suggested US gas prices have shot up because Trump is stealing and hoarding the nation's fuel for Air Force One and ICE to use; that's how dumb this sounds. Dumb with a B. People don't know it has a B.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Rep. Carlos Gimenez: "All of the southeastern United States is actually now threatened by Cuba. Cuba has always been a national security threat to the United States ... once we finish with Iran, then President Trump is going to turn his attention to Cuba"

Video in link

 

[Helen]

Rep. Carlos Gimenez: "All of the southeastern United States is actually now threatened by Cuba. Cuba has always been a national security threat to the United States ... once we finish with Iran, then President Trump is going to turn his attention to Cuba"

Video in link

So I expect that to happen in two weeks.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

So I expect that to happen in two weeks.

The Cuban invasion of the US?

 

[Helen]

The Cuban invasion of the US?

I wouldn't mind But I meant the "when we're finished with Iran we'll take on Cuba" part. Which you probably knew!

 

[dann]

Cuba’s Foreign Investors Aren’t Fleeing Communism

Belly of the Beast on X, July 18, 2026
Companies from Canada, Spain, France, Germany and Australia are leaving Cuba. They’re not fleeing communism. They’re fleeing U.S. sanctions. So who stands to gain?

With a video, 1:35 min.

On May 1, Trump signed an Executive Order sanctioning foreign companies doing business in Cuba.
But why would a company in Spain or Canada or Australia care about what Trump says?
Because they could have their U.S. bank account seized, or lose access to the U.S. financial system entirely.
Or the company's executives and all their family members can be banned from entering the United States.

Cuba’s Foreign Investors Aren’t Fleeing Communism — They’re Fleeing Sanctions (YouTube short, June 18, 2026)

 

[dann]

This is the one YouTube video you should definitely watch this week! It will tell you all there is to know about the situation and who is (not) to blame.

'We have no water’ (MS NOW on YouTube, June 20, 2026 – 5:43 min.)
“I’ve been without water service for about two weeks,” says David Ramos, a longtime resident. “I’ve known of people who have gone close to over 40 days without water service,” and much of the water they do have is unsanitized and has gotten people sick.

It's as bad as you can imagine, but the media isn't paying much attention to the problem.

For years, it was the island's chronic blackouts and electricity issues that you read about in the headlines and watched on our TV screens. Right now, it is water or lack thereof.
(...)
Many people across the island (...) have been without running water for days and even weeks at a time as the summer heat gets stickier and hotter. And residents say they're not getting much information from their government.
The lack of resources and desperation for water has called for some creative solutions, like giant milk tankers that have been sanitized and repurposed to make water deliveries.
Many residents are being forced to travel to water filling stations in specific areas. The call them oases.

The UN should send a team of humanitarian aid workers to the island, or maybe one of the hangar ships currently deployed to the Strait of Hormuz can help out on its way back to the USA once that war ends, but it probably ain't gonna happen.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

just from an academic standpoint, people should be curious if how well a Communist Economy can actually work if not aggressively inferred with.

 

[dann]

Left of Center Orange Hater on bsky, June 20, 2026

 

[The Atheist]

....social control and kleptocratic profit...

Thus we get to the truth.

Trump doesn't like competition.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

This is the one YouTube video you should definitely watch this week! It will tell you all there is to know about the situation and who is (not) to blame.

It's as bad as you can imagine, but the media isn't paying much attention to the problem.


The UN should send a team of humanitarian aid workers to the island, or maybe one of the hangar ships currently deployed to the Strait of Hormuz can help out on its way back to the USA once that war ends, but it probably ain't gonna happen.

Maybe Trump can send that hospital ship he was going to send to Greenland for no discernible reason.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Secretary Marco Rubio
@SecRubio

The situation in Cuba is devolving as the island’s corrupt, brutal and anti-American Communist regime continues to prioritize its own total control over the freedom, opportunity and basic wellbeing of the Cuban people.

The Cuban military-controlled conglomerate GAESA has persistently served as the main vector for regime elites to steal the island’s few resources, diverting them for repression, anti-American subversion and spying instead of schools, power plants, and basic necessities for the Cuban people. Today, I designated additional GAESA network entities associated with moving both its money and its physical assets, as well as entities responsible for exploiting Cuba’s mineral and metal reserves for ill-gotten profit.

Anyone providing services to these sanctioned actors is at risk of being sanctioned themselves. Foreign banks and other companies that provide services to these entities should freeze those activities immediately.

link

 

[Andy_Ross]

Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez
@RepCarlos

Thank you, @SecRubio! The regime in #Cuba is a national security threat to the United States and must be relegated to the ash heap of history.

President Trump’s & your leadership have been key to pressuring the regime more than ever before. Cuba is next!

 

[John Albert]

Fascism requires the preception of existential threats from within and from outside the country.

The accusations keep the ignorant, belligerent segments of the population motivated to support the regime, and also serve as an excuse for the fascists to justify bullying innocent people for profit.

 

[dann]

yesterday:

Progressive International on X, Jul7 7, 2026
BREAKING Despite a maximum pressure campaign by Marco Rubio, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly votes to carry out its debate on the "necessity of putting an end to the economic, commercial, and financial Blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba."

At UN, Cuba rallies support against ‘ruthless’ US blockade (AlJazeera, July 8, 2026)
Many of the world’s regional blocs, including countries in Africa and the Caribbean, expressed their support for Cuba on Tuesday and condemned the US blockade.
Every year since 1992, the General Assembly has adopted by a large majority a non-binding resolution calling for the lifting of the blockade imposed on Cuba by the US.

EU Statement – UN General Assembly: Embargo imposed by the USA against Cuba (EU Statement – UN General Assembly: Embargo imposed by the USA against Cuba (Delegation of the European Union to the United Nations in New York, July 7, 2026)

 

[Andy_Ross]

Ambassador Mike Waltz
@USAmbUN

If there’s no money in Cuba for fuel or food or medicine, how is there fuel for the Castro private family jet? How does the Cuban president afford his Hermes ties and Montblanc pens? How do the Castros maintain their 17 homes?

video in link

 

[Andy_Ross]

Ambassador Mike Waltz
@USAmbUN

“There’s a lot of talk today of an embargo. And indeed there is one. It’s the embargo the Cuban regime mercilessly imposes on its own people decade after decade after decade.”

video in link

 

[dann]

Ambassador Mike Waltz
@USAmbUN
If there’s no money in Cuba for fuel or food or medicine, how is there fuel for the Castro private family jet? How does the Cuban president afford his Hermes ties and Montblanc pens? How do the Castros maintain their 17 homes?
video in link

There actually is no money in Cuba for fuel or medicine, but if there were, there would still be the U.S. fuel blockade.
How come Mike Waltz includes a video of himself talking? How come he doesn't include a video of the alleged "Castro private family jet" taking off? How come he doesn't show footage of the Cuban president with Hermes ties and Montblanc pens? How come he doesn't include a link to Google Earth pinpointing the 17 Castro homes?

Arturo Domingo on X, July 8, 2026
While people suffer in the U.S., why is there money for Trump's vanity projects? Yet another duplicitous position, highlighting why fewer and fewer people take you goons seriously. Now watch how any other country can easily expose your hypocrisy with simple facts.

Contrast Hermes ties and Montblanc pens with this:
Trump unveils Qatari luxury jet for Air Force One fleet (BBC, June 20, 2026)
I suspect that pens and ties are stuff that leaders of state may give to each other when they meet. They're at a level where they can't be suspected of being bribes.
Luxury jets, however ...

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Secretary Marco Rubio
@SecRubio

The situation in Cuba is devolving as the island’s corrupt, brutal and anti-American Communist regime continues to prioritize its own total control over the freedom, opportunity and basic wellbeing of the Cuban people.

...

Gosh. Imagine; a government that prioritised its own desire for control over the basic wellbeing of the Cuban people. Tut. You'd never be part of a government which did that Marco, would you?

Oh.