MIAMI — President Donald Trump’s administration announced new sanctions on Monday against a group of top Cuban Communist Party officials.

The U.S. State Department announced designating 11 “regime-aligned elites” associated with Cuba’s security apparatus, as well as three Cuban government bodies: The Directorate of Intelligence of Cuba, also known as DGI or G2; the Revolutionary National Police of Cuba, or PNP; and the Ministry of Interior of Cuba, or MININT.

“The United States will continue to take action to counter the Cuban regime, those furthering its goals, and those abroad enabling the elites to profit while the Cuban people suffer,” a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department wrote in a statement released on Monday.

The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also released the list, which included three generals — Maj. Gen. Eugenio Armando Rabilero Aguilera; Maj. Gen. Raúl Cuba Villar Kessel; Gen. Joaquin Quintas Sola — and Jose Miguel Gomez Del Vallin, Cuba’s chief of staff of military counterintelligence.

The others sanctioned were Vicente de la O Levy, Cuba’s minister of energy and mines; Rosabel Gamón Verde, Cuba’s minister of justice; Mayra Arevich Marin, the minister of communications; Juan Esteban Lazo Hernandez, the president of the Cuban National Assembly; and Dr. Roberto Tomás Morales Ojeda, secretary of the party’s Organization of the Central Committee.

Also on Monday, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel accused the United States of threatening “military aggression,” following a report that the Cuban military had acquired the attack drones.

In a statement published Monday on X, Díaz-Canel wrote in Spanish, “Cuba poses no threat, nor does it have aggressive plans or intentions against any country,” after Axios reported, sourcing “classified intelligence,” that the Cuban military had 300 drones.

“The threats of military aggression against Cuba from the world’s greatest power are well-known. The threat itself already constitutes an international crime,” Díaz-Canel wrote.

He added that, “If it were to materialize, it would trigger a bloodbath with incalculable consequences, plus the destructive impact on regional peace and stability.”

U.S. intelligence cited the Cuban drones could strike the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay or Key West, and the possibility that Iranian military advisers were in Havana to assist the Cubans with such attacks, according to the Axios report published on Sunday.

“Cuba, which already endures a multidimensional aggression from the U.S., does have the absolute and legitimate right to defend itself against a military onslaught. Yet that cannot be wielded, either logically or honestly, as an excuse for imposing war on the noble Cuban people,” Díaz-Canel wrote.

The New York Times recently reported that the U.S. had increased surveillance flights over the island. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez also accused the U.S. of fabricating “a fraudulent case” for U.S. military intervention.

The Associated Press reported on Friday that the U.S. Justice Department was working on a plan to indict Raúl Castro for the 1996 fatal attacks on two Brothers to the Rescue planes at sea.

On Thursday, during a visit to Havana, CIA Director John Ratcliffe demanded that Cuba “no longer be a safe haven for adversaries.”

Cubans are dealing with a fuel shortage that has prompted power outages and a detrimental domino effect that is affecting healthcare, unemployment, education, and food supply after the U.S. military’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Trump has put both Venezuela and Cuba under pressure to make deals with the U.S., as he re-branded the “Monroe Doctrine” as the “Donroe Doctrine.”

Amid the crisis, Díaz-Canel recently agreed to accept $100 million in direct humanitarian aid to Cubans from the U.S.

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Trump administration announces new sanctions against top Cuban Communist Party officials

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