Blake Burdge

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.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Cuba is actually not controlled by the government. Cuba is controlled by a military holding company named GAESA. GAESA owns virtually everything, and not a penny of that money translates over to the public treasury.

🚨 I was almost taken hostage in Cuba... I went to Cuba to document the humanitarian crisis and show life under 60+ years of communism and now amid the US blockade. Once I landed, they seized all my cameras except my iPhone and had intelligence agents following me all day until my security noticed their spies tailing us to the hotel where they waited all night for us to come down. Under communism there is no free speech, and those who show the reality or speak up are imprisoned. Me going without a planned Cuban government guide nearly got me and my security taken hostage or imprisoned. The situation in Cuba is much worse than anyone knows.

I guess the kingpin strategy works: since Nicolás Maduro’s removal, you do not hear a peep about the Cartel de los Soles.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8–1 on May 21 that a U.S. company can sue cruise lines for using its business assets seized by Cuba’s communist government decades ago. The case, Havana Docks Corp. v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, centers on the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which allows U.S. citizens and companies to sue those trafficking in confiscated Cuban property. Cuba nationalized foreign assets after Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution. Title III of the law was suspended by President Clinton but revived by President Trump in 2019. Havana Docks, a Delaware company, held a 99-year concession for docks confiscated without compensation in 1960. Cruise lines used the docks from 2015 to 2019, paying Cuba at least $130 million while earning over $1 billion. The 11th Circuit had overturned a $100 million+ judgment, ruling the company’s property interest expired in 2004. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion, stating Havana Docks needed only to prove the cruise lines used confiscated property to which it owns a claim, vacating the lower court decision. Justice Elena Kagan dissented.

Adys Lastres Morera is the sister of the Executive President of GAESA, the Cuban military-controlled financial conglomerate that steals millions in aid for the Cuban people at the behest of the regime. Morera was managing real estate assets and living in Florida, while also aiding Havana's communist regime, until I terminated her permanent resident status. I am pleased to announce that today, she was arrested and is now in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. There will be nowhere on this Earth - much less in our country - where foreign nationals who threaten our national security can live lavishly.

Acting AG Todd Blanche announces the indictment of Raul Castro.