10 years since embassies reopened, Cuban Americans reflect on past decade, current relationship with Cuba: Spectrum News New York producer Christina Santucci writes about the Cuba policy shifts over the past ten years since the U.S. and Cuban governments officially reopened embassies in Havana and Washington D.C. Interviewing former Bush administration Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and the Cuban Research Institute’s Interim Director Sebastian Arcos, Santucci details the Obama-era opening toward the island, policy restrictions imposed during the first Trump administration, moderate changes implemented under Biden’s term, and new sanctions levied so far during Trump’s second presidency. In comments to Santucci, ACERE policy advisor Lee Schlenker said, “The panorama right now is quite distinct from where we were 10 years ago,” particularly regarding travel, clarifying that “although U.S. tourism [to Cuba] is generally prohibited, there are still roughly a dozen legal options for travel to the island, including humanitarian projects, athletic tournaments and education activities.” Regarding increased U.S. restrictions on remittances and the partial U.S. travel ban for Cuban nationals — contributing to a broader, multifaceted crisis on the island — Schlenker told Spectrum News, “It’s having a lot of impacts, both materially, socially, and in terms of people’s psyche as well.” https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/watertown/international/2025/07/19/2015-cuba-us-restored-diplomatic-relations-anniversary

U.S. adds 11 more Cuban hotels to State Department blacklist: The State Department announced on the fourth anniversary of the island-wide July 11, 2021 protests that it was adding eleven Cuban hotels to its Cuba Prohibited Accommodations list. The list, created by the Trump administration in September 2020, was left untouched by the Biden administration, which neither added nor removed newly-constructed entities from the list, nor scrapped it altogether. The hotels at which individuals subject to U.S. jurisdiction are prohibited from staying include the newly built luxury high-rise “Torre K” and Havana’s Gran Aston, a popular option for U.S. people-to-people delegations and U.S. Embassy-sponsored workshops during the Biden administration. 7 of the 11 properties have also been added to the Cuba Restricted List, meaning the Commerce Department will deny applications to export or re-export items for their use. The measure will likely further harm tourism to the island, which has already dropped by 30% so far in 2025, according to Cuban authorities. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/07/14/2025-13149/updating-cuba-restricted-list

U.S. sanctions Cuban president Díaz-Canel and other officials for human rights violations: In the same announcement, Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed sanctions on Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, Defense Minister Álvaro López Miera, Interior Minister Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas, their immediate family members, and an undefined number of Cuban judicial and penitentiary officials for alleged “gross violations of human rights.” The move marks the first step in implementing the Trump administration’s June 30 National Security Presidential Memorandum-5. The designations and visa restrictions were taken pursuant to Section 7031(c) of the 2024 State Department funding bill and Section 212(a)(3)(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Díaz-Canel has only traveled to the U.S. twice during his tenure, in 2018 and 2023 for the UN General Assembly in New York, and has not sustained any official visits on U.S. territory, so the announced restrictions are unlikely to have any tangible impact on him or his ministers. https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-international/ap-us-sanctions-cuban-president-diaz-canel-and-other-officials-for-human-rights-violations/

Will the Trump administration face headwinds as it tightens the noose around Cuba? (Yes): Former Reuters Havana bureau chief Marc Frank writes in The Nation that “the Trump administration has taken aim at Cuban international medical missions, a key revenue earner, causing consternation among host countries.” Frank writes that “the long-standing campaign to brand the country’s medical and education programs abroad as human trafficking is being stepped up and, for the first time, third-country nationals have been penalized.” For the piece, Frank interviews John Kirk, a Canadian emeritus professor of Latin American Studies who has interviewed 270 Cuban medical mission participants over two decades, who said, “If Rubio were to succeed in having the Cuban medics withdrawn, he would be signing a death sentence for many patients and would also devastate badly needed funds for the Cuban healthcare services.” Discussing the views on the missions held by Caribbean and African countries, whose governments are deliberating how to respond to U.S. pressure, Frank writes: “Go to a Western diplomatic reception in Havana and the chitchat is all about debt, democracy, and human rights. Go to a diplomatic reception hosted by a developing country and the conversation trends toward South-South cooperation, healthcare, and education, not only because Cuban doctors and teachers may be working in the ambassador’s country or region, but because so many watch over thousands of foreign students studying in Cuba.” https://www.thenation.com/article/world/cuba-trump-humanitarian-foreign-aid/

Tennis table World Cup champ denied US visa over 2023 Cuba visit: The South China Morning Post reports that the Brazilian-Portuguese table tennis world champion Hugo Calderon was denied entry to the U.S. to participate in a major tournament because of his travel to Cuba in 2023 to participate in another tournament. This disqualified Calderón from access to the ESTA visa waiver program through which he had previously traveled to the United States for past tournaments, U.S. officials told him. The measure stems from the Trump administration’s designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, which requires nationals of over 40 countries, mostly in Europe and East Asia, to apply for U.S. visas (from which they are normally exempt) if they visit or are a dual national of a country deemed as a state sponsor of terrorism. The provision has depleted European tourism and participation in professional, research, and scientific activities on the island, stemming from the threat of rescission of individuals’ U.S. visa waiver. https://www.scmp.com/sport/china/article/3316917/table-tennis-world-cup-champ-calderano-denied-us-visa-over-cuba-trip-misses-wtt-grand-smash

Cuban reggaeton artist among those detained at “Alligator Alcatraz”: Cuban reggaeton artist Leamsy Izquierdo, known as Leamsy La Figura, is among the 900 reported detainees at the controversial Everglades detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz.” His partner Katia told Telemundo 51 that Izquierdo is a legal permanent resident and that he was transferred to the facility after being arrested for aggravated assault. Describing the conditions at the facility, Izquierdo said, “It’s about minus two degrees…Everyone is in T-shirts, shaking, screaming their heads off. This is hell.” He also said that detainees are only fed once a day and that the food “has worms in it.” Another Cuban detainee at the facility, Vladimir Miranda, who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border and was granted an I-220A form, said, “The generators apparently can’t cope, and the electricity goes out. When that happens, there’s no water, no phones, and the air conditioning stops. We’re here sweating profusely.” Meanwhile, the Trump administration has confirmed that foreigners from 26 countries and every continent except Antarctica are being detained at the Guantánamo Naval Base in Cuba, with 58 of 72 detainees being categorized as “high-risk” and thus being held at Camp IV, the post-9/11 prison complex on the base. https://www.telemundo51.com/noticias/local/reguetonero-cubano-denuncia-condiciones-en-centro-de-detencion-en-los-everglades/2674521/

Treasury fines U.S. logistics firm over Colombian subsidiary’s Cuba shipments: The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) fined U.S. logistics firm Key Holding, LLC $608,825 because its Colombian subsidiary, Key Logistics Colombia SAS, acquired in December 2021, continued to organize shipments to Cuba of food “not eligible to be licensed by OFAC” between January 2022 and July 2023. The value of the thirty-three shipments it facilitated was $3 million, and OFAC claims the shipments “caused harm to and undermined [Cuba sanctions’] objectives, the goal of which is to isolate the Cuban government and deprive it of resources.” Food shipments to Cuba from the U.S. or U.S. subsidiaries in third countries are authorized by law, but U.S. regulations prohibit the issuance of credit terms, require the acquisition of a Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) export license, and expect maintenance of an internal sanctions compliance program. It’s unclear whether Key Holding, LLC was offering credit terms to Cuban importers or failed to acquire a BIS export license for the “benign consumer products” which made up the “vast majority of the shipments.” https://ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actions/20250702

The OAS Caves to US Pressure Yet Again: Journalist Reed Lindsay writes in Jacobin that Cuban dissident Rosa María Payá, a proponent of maximum-pressure sanctions, was elected as a new commissioner to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights after Secretary and Deputy Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chris Landau, as well as Senior Bureau Official Michael Kozak, lobbied countries to back her candidacy. An independent panel at the American University Washington College of Law found that Payá “demonstrated limited substantive knowledge of the norms, jurisprudence, or doctrine of international human rights law,” and expressed concern about her membership in various civil society organizations, including those that have received funding appropriated by the U.S. Congress. Lindsay adds that “the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement accusing the White House of ‘blackmail’ by threatening to cut aid budgets in the region if member states did not vote for Payá.” Paya’s election comes amid confirmation that the IACHR has requested all member states of its parent organization, the Organization of American States, to provide information about their contracts with Cuba’s international medical missions, which have faced increased scrutiny resulting in sanctions against Honduran and other officials under the second Trump administration. https://jacobin.com/2025/07/oas-cuba-us-paya-sanctions

A 10-year-old Cuban girl was preparing to see her mother in Miami. Then Trump’s travel ban took effect: CBS News reports that a Cuban girl has sent a viral video message to President Trump asking him to reconsider a provision in his partial ban for Cuban nationals, announced June 9, by allowing U.S. residents to pursue family reunification processes. 10-year-old Sofia’s mother, Lia, had hoped to bring her daughter to live with her in Miami, where she is a legal permanent resident, saying that Sofia’s family reunification visa had already been approved. Yet the final step in the reunification process — an interview at the U.S. embassy in Havana — was cancelled following the announcement of the partial travel ban, which only allows U.S. citizens, not green card holders, to sponsor relatives from Cuba. “The travel ban is…very challenging for people who are in the middle of a process, because they’ve already invested themselves, money and time, into a process, and now this travel ban is going to completely divert it,” a South Florida immigration attorney told CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cuban-girl-was-preparing-to-join-mother-miami-trump-travel-ban/

In major escalation, the U.S. will sanction foreign companies supporting Cuba’s military: The Miami Herald‘s Nora Gámez Torres, after speaking with a “source knowledgeable with the new regulations,” reports that the Trump administration plans to sanction companies in third countries doing business with entities on the State Department’s Cuba Restricted List, stemming from the June 30 re-emission of National Security Presidential Memorandum-5. The potential “secondary sanctions” on European, Canadian, and Latin American firms invested in or trading with Cuban banks, hotels, mines, retailers or others purportedly linked to Cuba’s intelligence, defense or security services would require another executive order invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to be carried out, given they are not authorized by NSPM-5. Only persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction, including foreign firms doing business in the U.S., are subject to the Cuban Assets Control Regulations, so the announcement of potential secondary sanctions could be designed to incentivize foreign businesses wary of U.S. litigation to leave the island even if their operations are not illegal under current U.S. regulations. The article notes that even if the secondary sanctions, intended to induce a transition to civilian-led entities, target Cuban military-linked companies, “they are likely to contribute to the deterioration of the living conditions of Cubans on the island.” https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article306224076.html

75-year-old Cuban-born man in poor health dies in ICE custody: The New Republic’s Greg Sargent reports that a 75-year-old Cuban man who emigrated to the United States sixty years ago has died in ICE custody at the Krome detention facility in Miami. Isidro Perez, who died from a heart attack and had been convicted of possession of a controlled substance in 1981 and 1984, is the twelfth person to die in ICE custody this fiscal year, an increase from past years. Perez had been paroled into the U.S. in Houston in 1966, and his tragic death raises questions as to why somebody of his age who has been in the U.S. for so long was detained in the first place. Krome detention facility, where two detainees had already died this year, came under increased scrutiny last month after migrants lined up to spell out S.O.S., highlighting growing concerns about detention conditions. https://newrepublic.com/article/197409/cuban-man-dead-ice-custody

Cuba volleyball team banned from US event in latest sport spat: Bloomberg Caribbean correspondent Jim Wyss reports that Cuba’s women’s volleyball team was barred entry to the U.S. to participate in a tournament in Puerto Rico, “the latest example of a U.S. travel crackdown that the communist government blasted as discriminatory and said could hurt its ability to participate in the Olympics.” According to Wyss, the denial is the latest example of hardened policies toward Cuba by the Trump administration, which has suspended migration talks and imposed a partial travel ban against the island’s nationals. Visa denials have also prevented Cuba’s men’s basketball team and Cuba’s girls softball team from participating in tournaments this year, both in Puerto Rico, signaling a broader trend that could severely limit Cuba’s presence at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-27/cuba-s-volleyball-team-barred-from-us-event-in-latest-sport-spat

Cubans shut out by Trump are ditching Miami for Brazil: Bloomberg’s Andrew Rosati and Meg Lopes report that Cubans are increasingly headed to Curitiba in Brazil’s farm country, via visa-free travel to Guyana, as the United States under President Donald Trump turns its back on those fleeing the island. With Trump’s “aggressive clampdown roiling migration patterns across the hemisphere, the top destination for outbound Cubans is no longer along Florida’s shores,” the authors write, but rather Southern Brazil’s relatively wealthy metropolitan region, which offers “the promise of jobs, easy access to immigration papers, relative calm and affordable living.” In 2024, more than 22,000 Cubans sought refugee status in Brazil, almost twice as many as the year prior, and since the start of 2025, Cubans have outpaced migrants from Venezuela in making such requests, Bloomberg notes. Many of those who’ve settled in Brazil hope to make the journey north to the U.S. if immigration restrictions ease, in order to reunite with family in Florida and Texas, which have large Cuban communities. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-06-17/trump-deportations-cuban-migrants-ditch-miami-for-curitiba-brazil