US hits Cuba with new sanctions as island's crises multiply

HAVANA (AP) — The U.S. government on Thursday slapped new sanctions on Cuba in a fresh push to strangle the island’s economy and deepen its multiple crises.

Among those hit with sanctions are Fidel Ernesto Castro, grandson of former President Raúl Castro, and Cuba’s Oil Industry Supply Import Company, known as Abapet. The company is responsible for importing special equipment and spare parts needed to sustain Cuba’s crumbling power grid.

The sanctions aim to push Cuba’s critical machinery offline and exacerbate its energy crisis, said Brett Erickson, a sanctions expert and managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors, a consulting firm.

“The U.S. is trying to really tighten the screws as much as possible,” he said.

“The Trump administration seems to have no seriousness to accept any change from Cuba other than a toppling of regime. Marco is not going to let that go,” he added, referring to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Erickson anticipated that Cuba’s government would try to circumvent the sanctions “because they have to.”

“They’ll get creative in how they try to procure these maintenance parts,” he said, warning it would be a costlier alternative, which in turn would raise inflation and further hurt Cuba’s economy.

Islandwide blackouts have become increasingly common, while daily outages in Cuba now surpass 24 hours as the aging grid fails and fuel reserves dwindle ever since U.S. President Donald Trump in late January threatened tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to the island.

“The goal in theory is to create so much civilian hardship and suffering that they have no option but to essentially rise up and topple their government,” Erickson said. “It is an attempt to cause a humanitarian crisis.”

Talks earlier this year between the U.S. and Cuba have since halted, while sanctions have increased in recent months.

Erickson said he expects the U.S. to keep targeting smaller and smaller state companies to try and push them “into a death spiral.” The U.S. has previously sanctioned entities including Cuba's state-owned oil and gas company.

The U.S. State Department made the announcement just hours after Cuban officials held a press conference to share more details on the historic economic reforms approved in June.

When asked about the current situation in Cuba, Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, Cuba’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign investment, blamed the U.S. government.

“This past year has been very complex, and we know why,” he said. “The blockade is a genocide.”

He spoke before the sanctions were announced.

Among the Cubans exhausted by the ongoing outages is 49-year-old Yaqueline Bernal. She said Thursday that she hasn’t had electricity since Sunday and worries most about the consequences for her eight young grandchildren.

“If we don’t have power, we don’t have water,” she said. “You really don’t know what’s going to happen to you.”

Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba's foreign affairs minister, decried the latest sanctions on X.

“Collective punishment is a crime. So, too, is inflicting suffering on an entire population through measures coldly calculated to trigger a humanitarian crisis,” he said. “Enough with the abuse. Put an end to the blockade once and for all and allow Cuba to live in peace.”

Eugenio Martínez Enríquez, Cuba’s ambassador in Mexico, called Rubio “a liar without scruples.”

“We will not forget his crimes,” he wrote on X.

Meanwhile, Rubio asserted on X that those sanctioned “are part of the corrupt Castro financial and intelligence network.”

“Cuba’s Communist regime elites preside over a failed state where ordinary Cubans go hungry while the Castro family and other insiders enrich themselves through sanctions evasion and other illicit schemes — and seek to export subversive Marxist ideology to the United States and other states in the Western Hemisphere,” he wrote.

“Trump and I are unwavering in our commitment that Cuba will be free.”

Follow AP’s Latin America coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Children drag toys made from cardboard boxes as they walk in Minas, in Cuba's Havana province, Monday, Aug. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Director of the International Press Center, (CPI), Abel Ernesto Derivet Vidal, left, and Cuba's Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Perez-Oliva Fraga walk past an image of the late Fidel Castro as they arrive for a press conference at the CPI in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A man rests on a sofa on a street in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday named Adam Telle as the acting Army secretary following the departure of Dan Driscoll amid widespread reports of tensions with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Telle is currently the assistant secretary of the Army for civil works.

“He is a Great Patriot, who is respected by all,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

Driscoll gave no explanation for his decision to quit this week as the Army's top civilian official. His clashes with Hegseth have been widely reported, and some of Driscoll’s allies in the Army were ousted this year by Trump’s Pentagon chief.

Telle has been at the Army Office of Civil Works since August 2025, according to Legistorm, a website that tracks lawmakers and Capitol Hill staffers. Before that, Telle spent 20 years mostly working in Congress for lawmakers, including as chief of staff for Republican Sen. Bill Haggerty of Tennessee from 2021 to 2025.

Telle had a job for 18 months working in the White House during Trump's first term as a special assistant to the president for legislative affairs, Legistorm said. He also spent more than 10 years working for the late Republican Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi.

Telle will be overseeing the nation’s largest fighting force at a time when the U.S. is still engaged in conflict with Iran and significant Army forces are stationed in the Middle East.

The war has significantly contributed to the U.S. military’s shortfall in critical weapons like the Patriot and THAAD defense missile interceptors systems, which are operated by the Army.

Driscoll, an Army veteran who served in Iraq, did not offer an explanation for why he stepped down after 18 months as the service’s civilian leader.

He is a friend of Vice President JD Vance and had good relationships with both Republicans and Democrats in Congress. His allies in the Army who were ousted by Hegseth included its top uniformed leader, Gen. Randy George.

Gen. Christopher LaNeve took over as the Army’s acting chief of staff and recently pulled the plug on a drone modernization program that Driscoll had championed.

Driscoll spoke with Trump on the current state of the Army before he submitted his resignation, The Associated Press has reported.

Driscoll did not allude to any problems in the only public statement on his departure, saying Tuesday that it has been “the honor of a lifetime” to serve as Army secretary under Trump and Hegseth.

“We could not have made the progress we did without the support of Secretary Hegseth,” he added.

Democrats and Republicans lamented Driscoll’s departure, with some blaming Hegseth directly.

Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who is retiring and sometimes has clashed with Trump, said on social media that Hegseth “is creating a leadership void at the top of our military ranks.”

President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House during a meeting with travel executives, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)