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Trump Tightens Cuba Sanctions, Orders 30-Day Policy Review

Enforcing a strict tourism ban with multi-year audits, the memorandum aims to cut off revenue streams to Cuba’s military-run enterprises.

FILE - Cuban doctors arrive at the Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, Cuba, June 8, 2020, after traveling to Italy to help with the COVID-19 emergency response. (Ismael Francisco/Pool via AP, File)
In this file photo, large cranes can be seen at Port Mariel inside the Mariel Special Economic Development Zone on Friday, Sept. 29, 2017.
A Cuban-American carries luggage as she leaves Havana's Jose Marti International Airport on November 20, 2020. - Used to avoiding difficulties and now that international flights have resumed, Cubans reactivated their archaic but efficient system of "mules" (human couriers), especially in the Havana-Miami flights, to mitigate the cut-off of family remittances and other restrictions imposed by the government of US President Donald Trump. Western Union is closing its Cuba operation on November 23, following new US sanctions. (Photo by Yamil LAGE / AFP) (Photo by YAMIL LAGE/AFP via Getty Images)
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Overview

  • The memorandum tasks Secretaries of State, Treasury, Commerce and Transportation with proposing within 30 days new measures to curb policies that benefit the Cuban regime and address its treatment of dissidents.
  • It reinstates a ban on leisure travel to Cuba and mandates regular audits plus five years of record-keeping on all travel-related transactions to ensure enforcement.
  • The directive renews prohibitions on financial dealings with military-controlled entities like GAESA, allowing exceptions only for transactions that support U.S. policy goals or aid Cuban civil society.
  • The administration has revoked temporary legal protections for about 300,000 Cubans and imposed visa restrictions on Cuban and foreign officials involved in the island’s medical missions.
  • Cuba’s foreign minister denounced the measures as criminal human rights violations while the U.S. reaffirmed its commitment to the economic embargo and opposition to UN calls for its lift.