Sanctions and Export Controls

Three Cuban American House Republicans from South Florida—Reps. Carlos Giménez, Mario Díaz-Balart and María Elvira Salazar—are pressing the Trump administration’s Commerce and Treasury departments to shut down what they call the last commercial 'valves' propping up Cuba’s Communist regime. In a letter they say will be sent Tuesday to Commerce Undersecretary Jeffrey Kessler and OFAC Director Bradley Smith, the lawmakers demand revocation of export licenses covering more than $100 million in U.S. shipments, including luxury cars and Jacuzzi tubs, that they argue enrich state-controlled conglomerates rather than ordinary Cubans and violate the spirit of the 1996 LIBERTAD sanctions law. Their push comes as Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel, facing U.S. efforts to choke off oil imports via tariff threats on Cuba’s suppliers, has warned that the island’s fuel could run out within about 15 days and branded the measures a 'genocidal' blockade. The members counter that tightening both oil and export licenses is necessary to deny economic support to a government Washington lists as a state sponsor of terrorism until there is 'concrete progress' on democracy and human rights. Analysts quoted in the piece say cutting off licensed food and medical exports is politically and morally fraught, but contend many of the high-end items cleared out of Miami end up in regime hands rather than in the broader population.