Cuba announces new pro-market reforms amid threats of a military attack from US President Donald Trump\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n
The United States has announced a new series of economic sanctions<\/a> targeting Cuba, its latest step in a campaign to squeeze the island\u2019s already fragile economy.<\/p>\n The US State Department said on Thursday that it was sanctioning several Cuban companies and 31-year-old Fidel Ernesto Castro, grandson of 95-year-old former leader Raul Castro.<\/p>\n Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n \u201cCuba\u2019s Communist regime elites preside over a failed state where ordinary Cubans go hungry,\u201d US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a social media post<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n Since January, President Donald Trump has undertaken a heightened campaign to weaken Cuba\u2019s government, in an effort to spur regime change.<\/p>\n Part of that campaign has been a series of escalating sanctions, as well as a de facto fuel blockade. Cuba had already been under a historic, decades-long US embargo that stretches back to the Cold War.<\/p>\n But Rubio argued that further actions were necessary to penalise Cuba\u2019s leadership for decades of mismanagement and repression.<\/p>\n He further accused Cuba of seeking to \u201cexport subversive Marxist ideology to the United States and other states in the Western Hemisphere\u201d, echoing Trump\u2019s assertions that the island is a national security threat.<\/p>\n Since the start of the heightened pressure campaign in January, Cuba has taken steps to defuse the criticism.<\/p>\n In June, it passed its biggest free-market reforms in decades, with 176 new measures. It has also conducted prisoner releases as a \u201chumanitarian and sovereign gesture\u201d.<\/p>\n On Thursday, further reforms were announced, with 34 pages of legal changes designed to loosen regulation and state control in industries like tourism.<\/p>\n Under the new rules, private companies will be able to establish tour and travel agencies, separate from the Cuban government. They also will not have to contract employees through state agencies.<\/p>\n It will also become easier for some domestic investors to open foreign bank accounts.<\/p>\n But such steps have thus far done little to placate the Trump administration.<\/p>\n Since the start of the year, the US has repeatedly threatened Cuba with military intervention<\/a>, and its sanction campaign has continued.<\/p>\n Critics warn that the sanctions, combined with the ongoing energy blockade, have pushed the country\u2019s power grid and healthcare systems<\/a> to the point of collapse.<\/p>\n