In 2019, the first Trump administration imposed many new sanctions against Cuba, including measures that targeted fuel shipments and raised the legal and financial penalties on foreign firms engaged in supplying fuel to the island. Consequently, the number of suppliers willing to service Cuba has declined, while those that continued to do business there have generally charged higher prices to compensate for the increased political and commercial risk.
More recently, the crisis in Cuba deepened when the United States began seizing tankers carrying Venezuelan crude oil destined for the island. Venezuela served as Cuba’s principal external energy supplier since 2000. However, since the mid-2010s, economic collapse and declining oil production have weakened Venezuela’s ability to provide Cuba with subsidized energy supplies. Nonetheless, Venezuelan crude continued to meet approximately 40 percent of Cuba’s energy needs in 2025.
In January 2026, the United States further intensified its sanctions policy by expanding economic restrictions and increasing pressure on third-party governments and commercial actors maintaining business ties with Cuba. To be more specific, President Trump issued Executive Order 14380 on January 29, which declared a national emergency and authorized additional measures targeting countries that continued to supply fuel to Cuba. The order itself stated that an:
. . .additional ad valorem rate of duty may be imposed on goods imported into the United States that are products of any other country that directly or indirectly [includes intermediaries or third countries] sells or otherwise provides any oil [including both crude oil and petroleum products] to Cuba.
Executive Order 14380 also asserts that “the Government of Cuba has taken extraordinary actions that harm and threaten the United States.” That said, the order provides little concrete evidence to substantiate these claims, instead relying on broad allegations that the Cuban government “aligns itself with—and provides support for—numerous hostile countries, transnational terrorist groups, and malign actors adverse to the United States,” including Russia, China, Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah. It further contends that “the Cuban communist regime supports terrorism and destabilizes the region through migration and violence.”
Executive Order 14380 also narrows avenues for humanitarian assistance by restricting donations and transfers that may directly or indirectly benefit blocked Cuban entities or sanctioned individuals. Under US sanctions law, such restrictions can encompass monetary transfers, family remittances, equipment and supplies, software and communication technologies, and assistance delivered through nongovernmental organizations or third-country intermediaries. Consequently, the measures intended to increase economic pressure on the Cuban government risk impeding forms of support that ordinarily serve humanitarian, familial, or charitable purposes.
Subsequently, the US government introduced Executive Order 14404 in May, which serves as a direct continuation and expansion of the national emergency declared under Executive Order 14380. In practice, it intensifies the sanctions regime against Cuba even further by expanding both the scope of targeted actors and the range of prohibited activities. The order authorizes sanctions against foreign individuals and entities operating in key sectors of the Cuban economy, including energy, defense, mining and metals, financial services, and security, while also granting the Treasury Department authority to designate additional sectors in the future. Its reach extends beyond entities directly controlled by the Cuban government to include parent and subsidiary companies, third-country investors, facilitators of commercial transactions, and even adult family members of sanctioned individuals. In effect, the order seeks to not only isolate the Cuban state, but also to penalize foreign actors engaged in otherwise lawful economic relationships with Cuba.
Visa and Mastercard payment systems have effectively become unavailable in Cuba as of June 6. This is because the Trump administration exerted pressure on foreign financial institutions to sever ties with FINCIMEX—the Cuban financial services company that manages remittance and payment operations, which has played an important role in facilitating international financial transactions involving Cuba. Its state affiliation has made it a target of US sanctions, which have impeded its ability to interact with international financial networks. As a result, foreign visitors can no longer rely on major international credit card networks to conduct transactions on the island. This development also carries broader economic consequences in that the disruption of foreign payment channels reduces the inflow of hard currency into the domestic economy, thereby limiting a key source of revenue for Cuban households and state-linked commercial entities that depend on tourism. In response, Cuba continues to rely on its domestic prepaid card systems (Classic and Tropical), alongside alternative international networks, such as Russia’s MIR system and China’s UnionPay, which remain operational within the country.
These recent measures strengthening the embargo have significantly expanded the extraterritorial reach of US sanctions, including by further restricting Cuba’s access to international energy markets. Moreover, the Trump administration is not only targeting Cuban state officials, as the orders extend penalties to private individuals, foreign investors, family members, and humanitarian actors whose activities may only involve an indirect relationship with the Cuban government. Ultimately, such measures effectively impose costs on peaceful economic interactions for the purpose of advancing geopolitical objectives. By pressuring foreign banks and payment providers to disengage from Cuban financial institutions, the US government limits the ability of individuals to transact freely across borders and transfers the costs of geopolitical conflict onto ordinary market participants. In doing so, Washington exercises coercive state power against peaceful economic exchange and dictates the commercial activities of individuals, firms, and sovereign states outside its territorial jurisdiction.
From a Rothbardian perspective, Executive Orders 14380 and 14404 exemplify the tendency of states to invoke expansive, and often vaguely-defined, national-security threats to legitimize interventionist policies. Rather than demonstrating a direct and imminent threat to American citizens, both orders construct a broad geopolitical rationale for extending US influence beyond its borders. Rothbard argued that foreign-policy establishments frequently employ the language of security, democracy, and national interest to cultivate public support for measures that would otherwise be recognized as exercises of coercive state power. On this subject, Rothbard specifically stated that:
In the name of “national self-determination” and “collective security” against aggression, the American government has consistently pursued a goal and a policy of world domination and of the forcible suppression of any rebellion against the status quo anywhere in the world. In the name of combatting “aggression” everywhere—of being the world’s “police man”—it has itself become a great and continuing aggressor.
Even during the Cold War Era, Rothbard never believed that communist countries posed a direct threat to American citizens or territory, as he stated:
I don’t think that anybody really thinks Russia or China or Albania are out to conquer us militarily. If you press the cold warriors hard enough, they will admit that. But they’re worried about so-called subversion. In other words, they’re worried about internal communism, either here or abroad. And what I’m saying is that the internal problem we have to worry about is statism. The main objection I have to communism is that communism is statism. And American statism is what’s oppressing us.
The commitment of the Trump administration to holding the Cuban government accountable for supporting terrorism and destabilizing the region, while, at the same time, promoting a “free and democratic society” on the island, reflects a familiar illiberal and anti-libertarian interventionist logic: one government may legitimately pressure, punish, or reshape another society in pursuit of its foreign-policy objectives. Instead of promoting voluntary exchange and market relations, President Trump is imposing political constraints through economic punishment, thereby extending state power into the sphere of international commerce. From this perspective, the US embargo not only restricts economic freedom, but it also infringes upon the sovereignty of nations seeking to engage in voluntary, mutually-beneficial trade beyond Washington’s sphere of influence.
By using sanctions and secondary penalties to disrupt commercial networks, the US is distorting market incentives, impeding decentralized patterns of exchange, and limiting the spontaneous economic relationships that would otherwise emerge through peaceful commerce. From a libertarian perspective, these economic restrictions also reflect the broader problem of government intervention in international affairs. Accordingly, Rothbard reminds advocates of liberty that “the basic element of any libertarian foreign policy is to pressure the government to do nothing abroad, just to pack up shop and go home.”
