The president of the Prensa Latina Agency, Jorge Legañoa Alonso, came out to defend the Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel on the television program Mesa Redonda, just hours after the U.S. Department of the Treasury directly sanctioned the Cuban president and several members of his circle.
The sanctions, announced on June 4, are part of the third wave of measures under Executive Order 14404, signed by Donald Trump on May 1, 2026, and also targeted Lis Cuesta Pedraza, the wife of Díaz-Canel, Alejandro Castro Espín, the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, and several economic entities of the regime.
Legañoa described the measures as part of an "interventionist media campaign" by the White House and presented them as a source of pride for the Cuban leader.
"It is a medal, it is a recognition of resilience, of not wanting to give in, of not allowing oneself to be pressured, of defending the principles and values of the revolution," the official stated in the information segment.
However, Legañoa himself tempered his triumphant interpretation by acknowledging the real seriousness of the measures: "That is the response, we could say it is romantic and revolutionary, but we must not lose sight of the fact that this is a direct threat against the president of this country."
The official went further by invoking the Venezuelan case as a warning: "That president has constitutional guarantees, which are respected internationally by presidents. But, well, we have already seen what happened with a legitimately elected president like ours in the case of Nicolás Maduro."
The comparison of Díaz-Canel with Maduro—whose regime is widely labeled as a dictatorship by international organizations—reflects the narrative that the Cuban regime has adopted to frame the sanctions as an imperial attack, while also revealing internal concerns about their actual consequences.
The chancellor Bruno Rodríguez also came out to support the ruler, describing the inclusion of Díaz-Canel and Lis Cuesta on the sanctions list as " vile" and "illegitimate."
On his part, Díaz-Canel responded to the sanctions, labeling them as "immoral, illegal, and criminal" and claimed that Washington had no evidence or identifiable assets under U.S. jurisdiction.
Since January 2026, the Trump administration has imposed over 240 sanctions against Cuba as part of its maximum pressure policy, which includes secondary sanctions on foreign financial institutions that engage in transactions with blocked Cuban entities.
The deadline for companies from third countries to establish ties with GAESA without risking retaliation expired this past Friday, which opens a new phase of economic pressure on the regime at a time when its main figures are already on the U.S. Treasury's designated lists.
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