MIAMI — The Trump administration sanctioned Cuba’s state-owned oil and gas company on June 11, adding Unión Cuba-Petróleo — known as CUPET — to the Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals list under Executive Order 14404, in a move experts warned would deepen the island’s already catastrophic fuel crisis and hit ordinary Cubans hardest.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio asserted that key assets of the company were “unlawfully expropriated from American owners years ago” and accused Cuba’s government of weaponizing energy.
“While the Cuban people have suffered fuel shortages and blackouts because of decades of under-investment in critical infrastructure, Cuba’s Communist leaders have diverted energy resources to line their own pockets,” Rubio said.
The CUPET designation comes one week after the Trump administration sanctioned Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, his wife, and members of the Castro family, and follows earlier designations of GAESA — Cuba’s military-controlled commercial conglomerate — on May 7. The June 11 action follows related sanctions taken by the Trump administration on June 4, May 18, and May 7, 2026.
The CUPET action is significant because it marks the use of a new, parallel Cuba sanctions program — one built on IEEPA-based blocking sanctions and carrying a distinctly more aggressive posture toward non-U.S. actors and foreign financial institutions. Before June 11, foreign companies could structure transactions to avoid direct U.S. sanctions exposure. The CUPET designation eliminates much of that legal flexibility.
The humanitarian consequences were immediately contested. Ricardo Herrero, executive director of the Cuba Study Group, said he was “genuinely vexed” by the move, writing on X: “How are private importers supposed to store diesel and get it into vehicles without using CUPET facilities? This undermines what, until this morning, had been a humanitarian priority for the US. Either something much bigger is afoot, or we've entered the ‘indiscriminate cruelty’ phase of this policy.”
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had warned days earlier that the cumulative impact of U.S. sanctions was lethal. “The fuel restrictions imposed since early 2026 and recent tightening of extraterritorial sanctions, taken together, are directly harming Cubans, especially the most vulnerable,” said Volker Türk.
Trump, asked whether the sanctions were meant to accelerate Cuba’s collapse, told journalists in the Oval Office: “We just want them to be a nicely run country. The country is starving, and it’s got no energy, it’s got no oil, it's got no money, it’s got nothing. It’s got a beautiful piece of land. You could have beautiful resorts.”
Cuba’s Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodríguez fired back at Rubio directly, accusing the secretary of state of being driven by “ambitions of conquest, presidential aspirations, and the vengeful sentiments of the elitist clique that propelled his political career.”
Rubio stated the Trump administration “will continue to target Cuba’s ability to leverage energy trade to further its corrupt agenda and repressive security apparatus,” signaling that further designations remain on the table. Since January 2026, the U.S. has imposed over 240 measures against Cuba, intercepted at least seven oil tankers, and reduced the island's energy imports by 80 to 90 percent.
Cuba is experiencing generation deficits of up to 2,174 megawatts, with power outages lasting 20 to 24 hours daily in some provinces.
