The Department of the Treasury of the United States announced this Thursday the adoption of sanctions against three citizens and nine companies and organizations from Cuba, among which is the Ministry of Construction, in the context of the pressures from the Trump Administration on the Cuban authorities and the blockade against the Caribbean country.
The individuals included in the measures of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC, for its initials in English) of the United States are related to the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), which has already been sanctioned previously by Washington.
On the list are its vice president, Noemí Rabaza; its director for North America, Leima Martínez; and the president of the organization, deputy Fernando González Llort, who was imprisoned in the United States for 15 years along with four other Cubans for alleged espionage.
The OFAC has also extended sanctions to four companies in the metallurgical and mineral resources sector of Cuba that operate "for the benefit of the regime," according to Washington: Acinox Comercial, Geominsal, Metalcuba, and the Ernesto Che Guevara nickel company.
Along with them, the Ministry of Construction and the Agency for Contracting Commercial Representations SA, which supplies Cuban labor to foreign firms operating in the Caribbean country and which, according to the U.S. government, has "retained more than 90% of the wages paid" by these companies to their Cuban workers, are included.
Likewise, the OFAC has imposed sanctions against Coratur SA, Transimport, and Consumimport, three companies that operate under the umbrella of the Foreign Trade Business Group (GECOMEX), which has also been subject to sanctions by Washington.