Secretary of State Marco Rubio linked the new restrictions to the 2021 unrest in Havana
The US has placed visa restrictions on Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, accusing Havana of human rights violations.
Defense Minister Alvaro Lopez Miera and Interior Minister Lazaro Alberto Alvarez Casas have also been blacklisted.
In a statement on X on Friday, Rubio accused the Cuban government of corruption, particularly with regard to the 2021 anti-government protests and clashes in Havana.
“Four years since the Cuban regime’s brutal crackdown on protestors, the State Department is restricting visas for Cuban regime figureheads… and their cronies for their role in the Cuban regime’s brutality toward the Cuban people,” he wrote.
“The United States demands immediate proof of life and the release of all political prisoners,” Rubio added.
Cuban officials have claimed that the US incited the 2021 unrest by exploiting economic hardships in order to topple the government.
In May, the US imposed sanctions on three Cuban judges and a prosecutor for their role in the imprisonment of protester and activist Luis Robles. In 2025, Robles was released after serving nearly five years behind bars.
The country has been under a US trade blockade since the 1960s. US President Donald Trump reversed the Obama-era attempts at normalizing relations, and reinstated Cuba in the list of state sponsors of terrorism earlier this year.
The Cuban Foreign Ministry has vowed to resist America’s “imperialist and interventionist” policies. “We are free, sovereign and independent, and we are going to continue building our revolution, despite the tightening of the blockade,” Diaz-Canel said last year.
Russia and China have condemned the US sanctions on Havana. In an op-ed published in Cuban state-run newspaper Granma in May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called for the lifting of the “illegal” economic blockade.
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