The Trump administration banned all financial transactions between Americans and a Cuban propaganda agency that sponsors U.S. leftist groups visiting the communist island.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Thursday that anyone in the U.S. conducting financial business with the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) now faces sanctions. The agency works with the National Network on Cuba (NNOC), a U.S.-based coalition of more than 60 American leftist organizations.
“The work you do from the United States is essential. Each approved local resolution, each caravan, each brigade, each communication piece that dismantles the lie, it is a sharp blow against the policy of asphyxiation.”
ICAP arranges propagandistic trips from America to Cuba in partnership with the NNOC, according to Daily Caller reporting. The NNOC member list includes fringe militia-like groups such as Armed Queers Salt Lake City and the Venceremos Brigade, plus mainstream organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America.
For decades, Cuba has been the world capital for radical left-wing terrorism. The regime in Havana has recruited, trained and backed violent Marxist and third-worldist movements across our hemisphere and beyond. Today, we are targeting the network that enables and funds Cuba’s…
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) June 4, 2026
Late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro created ICAP in 1960 to arrange friendly indoctrination visits, according to American intelligence and Cuban state media.
ICAP’s president is Fernando González Llort, a former Cuban spy arrested in 1998 as part of an espionage network. González was convicted of spying on U.S. military installations and served about 15 years in prison, NBC News reported.
In a November speech on the NNOC’s YouTube channel, González praised American leftists for advocating against tough U.S. policy toward Cuba. The quote above is from that speech.
Rubio also sanctioned four other Cuban entities and five regime-linked figures, including Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez.
El presidente de EE.UU hace nuevas declaraciones amenazadoras contra #Cuba; y el Departamento del Tesoro incorporó nuevos nombres de dirigentes, organizaciones y empresas cubanas a una lista ilegítima de sanciones.
Están dirigidas a reforzar las medidas de #bloqueo y el…
— Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (@DiazCanelB) June 4, 2026
Díaz-Canel called the sanctions “illegitimate” in a Thursday post on X. He accused the U.S. of “aggressiveness and perversity,” saying the measures would “clash with our determination to confront the worst scenarios and resist the imperialist onslaught.”
Rubio warned that foreign banks and companies providing services to sanctioned entities should freeze those activities immediately. “Anyone providing services to these sanctioned actors is at risk of sanctions themselves,” he said.
