WASHINGTON, United States — On Friday, the United States imposed a ban on transactions with the main pipeline for remittances to Cuba, marking the latest move to tighten restrictions on the communist island since President Donald Trump’s return to office.
Upon taking office on January 20, Trump quickly reversed a decision made by his predecessor, Joe Biden, to remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. This removal had been part of a deal brokered by the Vatican, in which Cuba released political prisoners.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American and vocal critic of Cuba’s communist government, announced that the U.S. was reinstating sanctions on a list of Cuban organizations that had been slated for removal under Biden’s administration.
Rubio announced that all previously sanctioned entities would be reinstated to the list, including Orbit, SA, a remittance-processing company.
“The State Department is reissuing the Cuba Restricted List to deny resources to the very branches of the Cuban regime that directly oppress and surveil the Cuban people while controlling large swaths of the country’s economy,” Rubio said in a statement.
During his previous term, President Trump had also imposed sanctions on another remittance-handling company, Fincimex, due to its connections to the Cuban military.
Cuba replaced Fincimex with Orbit as a remittance-processing company. However, a December investigation by the Miami Herald revealed that Orbit is also controlled by the Cuban military, despite previous assurances to the contrary.
Cuban-Americans send millions of dollars annually back to the island, making remittances a crucial source of hard currency for Cuba’s struggling economy.
During his first term, Trump reversed former President Barack Obama’s efforts to end a half-century of U.S. policies aimed at isolating Cuba, a strategy Obama had deemed a failure.
