Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Thursday the sanctioning of Cuba’s state-owned oil and gas company, Unión Cuba-Petróleo — known as CUPET — under President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14404, in a sweeping move that strips the regime’s most powerful economic engine of access to U.S. financial markets and freezes all its assets within American jurisdiction. The action marks one of the most aggressive single strikes yet in a months-long campaign by the Trump administration to economically strangle Havana’s communist government, and it comes at a moment when Washington’s attention to rogue regimes across the Western Hemisphere has never been sharper.
Rubio announced the designation in a post on X at 12:04 p.m. on Thursday, June 11, 2026, laying out the administration’s case in blunt terms. His full post read:
“Today, I am sanctioning Cuba’s state-owned energy company, Unión Cuba-Petróleo (CUPET), under President Trump’s EO 14404. Cuba’s Communist elites have weaponized energy as a tool of social control and kleptocratic profit. For decades, the regime has stolen and hoarded available fuel — using it for the Castros’ private jet, the security services forces used to repress the Cuban people, to keep empty tourist hotels lit up, and to bus people in for fake protests and political stunts — all while the Cuban people have suffered blackouts and waited weeks to fill their cars. President Trump wants a new future for the Cuban people with greater economic and political freedom and opportunity. Until then, we will continue to target the Communist regime’s ability to leverage its energy trade to further its corrupt agenda and violently repress the Cuban people.”
CUPET Designated Under EO 14404, Assets Frozen
According to the State Department, CUPET is being designated pursuant to Section 2(a)(i)(A) of Executive Order 14404 for operating or having operated in the energy sector of the Cuban economy. The department stated that all property and interests in property of the designated entity that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Additionally, all entities owned individually or in the aggregate 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked.
In a separate State Department statement, Rubio accused Cuba’s communist government of using energy as both a tool of repression and self-serving regime kleptocracy, alleging that while ordinary Cubans faced fuel shortages and recurring blackouts — the result of decades of under-investment in infrastructure — the country’s leadership diverted energy resources for its own benefit.
Rubio stated that key assets of CUPET had been “unlawfully expropriated from American owners years ago,” and declared that the Trump administration “will continue to target Cuba’s ability to leverage energy trade to further its corrupt agenda and repressive security apparatus.”
A Months-Long Escalation Rooted in Executive Action
Thursday’s designation did not emerge in a vacuum. On May 1, 2026, President Trump signed Executive Order 14404, titled “Imposing Sanctions on Those Responsible for Repression in Cuba and for Threats to United States National Security and Foreign Policy.” The order broadened existing sanctions on Cuba to include new restrictions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, imposing penalties on entities, persons, or affiliates that support the Cuban regime’s security apparatus, are complicit in government corruption or serious human rights violations, or are agents, officials, or material supporters of the Cuban government.
That executive action itself built upon an earlier order signed in January 2026 in which Trump declared a national emergency and established a process to impose tariffs on goods from countries that sell or otherwise provide oil to Cuba, protecting U.S. national security and foreign policy from what the administration called the Cuban regime’s malign actions and policies.
Thursday’s announcement came nearly a week after the U.S. government sanctioned Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, his wife, and three other individuals. The CUPET designation represents a significant escalation in scope — moving from targeting individual regime figures to striking the island’s central energy infrastructure directly.
State Department: Energy as a Tool of Repression and Theft
In prior State Department statements issued under the same executive order, Rubio described the Cuban communist regime as having waged a “continuous campaign of political, ideological, and institutional warfare against the United States” for nearly seven decades, characterizing the Cuban people as “hostages of a brutal and repressive government” that disregards their safety and prosperity in order to serve as an outpost for American adversaries and export what the administration called radical left-wing violence across the hemisphere.
The Trump administration has framed the escalating sanctions campaign as a comprehensive effort to address pressing national security threats posed by the Cuban regime while holding accountable both the regime and those who provide it material support. Earlier rounds of designations targeted Cuban regime elites and government organizations, including officials and military figures associated with Cuba’s security apparatus.
Cuba’s ‘Trump Doctrine’ Backdrop: Iran, Venezuela, and What Comes Next
The CUPET sanctions carry weight that extends well beyond their immediate financial impact, arriving as the Trump administration is simultaneously navigating final stages of negotiations to end the U.S.-Iran war. As recently as June 9, 2026, President Trump repeated claims that a deal to end the conflict with Iran could be reached within “two or three days” and that the critical Strait of Hormuz would reopen “immediately” after such an agreement.
Trump has been explicit about what he sees coming after Iran. Speaking in late March 2026 at the Future Investment Initiative Institute Summit in Miami Beach, Florida, Trump signaled a shift in focus following progress in Iran negotiations and the administration’s capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, saying: “And Cuba is next, by the way. But pretend I didn’t say that. Please, please, please media, please disregard that statement. Thank you very much — Cuba’s next.”
The White House has reinforced the pattern explicitly, noting that Trump “has ordered strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and authorized operations to remove Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro from power, making clear that dictators and state sponsors of terror will be held to account.” Cuba, in the administration’s own framing, sits squarely in that line.
Washington’s Pressure Campaign: Official U.S. Posture on Cuba
The Trump administration has characterized Cuba as a national security threat, pointing to what it describes as the regime driving mass migration toward the United States, with more than 850,000 migrants arriving in America from Cuba in recent years. Washington has also accused Havana of operating a wide-ranging and violent radical action network designed to subvert and destabilize U.S. national security.
The State Department’s actions under EO 14404 also further the objectives of a national emergency previously declared under earlier executive orders, reinforcing that the administration views the Cuban regime not merely as a regional nuisance but as an active threat to U.S. foreign policy and national security. With the CUPET designation, the Trump administration has now targeted Cuba’s military leadership, its intelligence apparatus, its top government officials, and its energy sector — leaving little ambiguity about the scope of Washington’s economic warfare against Havana.