U.S. aims 'to really tighten the screws' on Cuba with newest sanctions: analyst

On Thursday, the U.S. government imposed new sanctions on Cuba, intensifying efforts to cripple the island's economy and address its numerous crises. Notable targets include Fidel Ernesto Castro, grandson of former President Raúl Castro, and Cuba's Oil Industry Supply Import Company, known as Abapet. Abapet plays a crucial role in importing specialized equipment and spare parts necessary to maintain Cuba's deteriorating power grid.

The aim of these sanctions, according to sanctions expert Brett Erickson, is to push Cuba's vital machinery offline and worsen the energy crisis. Erickson stated that the U.S. aims to "tighten the screws" and emphasized that the Trump administration will not accept any changes from Cuba other than the regime's collapse. He anticipated that Cuba's government would attempt to circumvent the sanctions due to necessity.

Erickson cautioned that these bypasses would prove costlier, potentially leading to inflation and worsening the country's economic situation. The island has been experiencing increasingly frequent blackouts, with daily outages now lasting over 24 hours, as the aging grid fails and fuel reserves dwindle, following the threat of U.S. tariffs on any country providing oil to Cuba in late January.

Erickson noted that the ultimate goal of these sanctions is to create so much suffering for the civilian population that they have no choice but to rise up and overthrow their government, aiming to cause a humanitarian crisis.