U.S. escalates economic campaign against Cuba and targets China-based suppliers

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion on Thurs­day es­ca­lat­ed its eco­nom­ic cam­paign against Cu­ba, is­su­ing a de­ter­mi­na­tion that clears the path for U.S. sanc­tions on sev­er­al cru­cial sec­tors of the is­land’s econ­o­my while al­so tar­get­ing Chi­nese-based sup­pli­ers to Ha­vana’s mil­i­tary forces.

The sanc­tions are part of a larg­er ef­fort by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and his al­lies to force po­lit­i­cal change in Ha­vana even as the coun­try con­tin­ues to grap­ple with a deep­en­ing eco­nom­ic and en­er­gy cri­sis that has suf­fo­cat­ed its pop­u­la­tion.

With the new penal­ties the State De­part­ment is ex­pand­ing its reach to tar­get new sec­tors of Cu­ba’s econ­o­my, in­clud­ing elec­tron­ics, man­u­fac­tur­ing, ma­rine and tech­nol­o­gy.

“Cu­ba’s rul­ing elite is hoard­ing the is­land’s en­er­gy, ship­ping, and tech­nol­o­gy re­sources for its own en­rich­ment, leav­ing the Cuban peo­ple to con­tend with black­outs, short­ages, and a stag­nant econ­o­my,” Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio said in a state­ment.

In to­tal, eight en­ti­ties and two in­di­vid­u­als were tar­get­ed, in­clud­ing Chi­na Na­tion­al Elec­tron­ic Im­port and Ex­port Com­pa­ny and Bei­jing H&C Tech­nolo­gies, two Chi­na-based com­pa­nies that the U.S. is ac­cus­ing of procur­ing weapons and sell­ing sur­veil­lance and se­cu­ri­ty equip­ment to the Cuban gov­ern­ment.

Wash­ing­ton’s cam­paign against Ha­vana has on­ly ac­cel­er­at­ed in re­cent months, with pub­lic spats be­tween their rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the Unit­ed Na­tions and on so­cial me­dia.

Last week, the U.N. Gen­er­al As­sem­bly con­demned the U.S. eco­nom­ic em­bar­go of Cu­ba for the 34th year. But the U.S. cam­paign to in­flu­ence the out­come led a num­ber of coun­tries to vote against the res­o­lu­tion or sit out the de­ci­sion for the first time.

Mean­while, Trump’s threat in late Jan­u­ary to im­pose tar­iffs on any coun­try that sells or pro­vides oil to Cu­ba has made is­land­wide black­outs even more com­mon, while dai­ly out­ages in Cu­ba now sur­pass 24 hours as the ag­ing grid fails and fu­el re­serves dwin­dle. —(AP)

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Sto­ry by FARNOUSH AMIRI | As­so­ci­at­ed Press