US issues more Cuba sanctions as Joe Biden prepares to meet Cuban-American leaders
- Biden will discuss plans to augment US embassy staff in Cuba to provide more help to the Cuban people
- The US Treasury Department said the sanctions were a reaction to ‘actions to suppress peaceful, pro-democratic protests in Cuba that began on July 11’
The US Treasury Department said the sanctions were a reaction to “actions to suppress peaceful, pro-democratic protests in Cuba that began on July 11.”
Treasury said that targets of the sanctions were two Cuban police force leaders as well as the Cuban interior ministry’s national police force.
Biden’s late afternoon meeting comes as the politically important community calls for more support for protests in Cuba that represent the biggest populist outpouring against the Havana government in decades. Biden had promised additional sanctions against Cuban leaders, a move backed by many Cuban-Americans.
Biden was expected to provide an update on US efforts to provide wireless communications to the Cuban people as well as attempts to allow remittance payments from Americans to Cubans without the Cuban government benefiting from the money, a senior administration official said.
In addition, Biden will discuss plans to augment US embassy staff in Cuba to provide more help to the Cuban people, the official told reporters on a conference call.