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The Republican senator Tom Cotton demanded on Wednesday that the Trump administration increase pressure on the Cuban regime and its international allies, in a message released three days before the fifth anniversary of the July 11, 2021 protests in Cuba.
In his post on the social network X, Cotton was straightforward: "Communism remains a failed fantasy and has real human costs. Fortunately, the Trump administration has consistently taken steps to hold the Cuban communist elites accountable for their corruption and repression, while continuing to offer support directly to the Cuban people."
"The administration must continue to tighten the screws on the regime and its foreign facilitators. The Cuban people—whose spirit is exemplified by the movement of July 11—deserve a chance at freedom," he stated.
The call from the senator from Arkansas comes in a week of intense political activity regarding Cuba. Just two days earlier, Cotton had remembered the fifth anniversary of 11J, which he described as "the cry of thousands of ordinary Cubans" who took to the streets to demand basic freedoms after decades of repression.
The context in which this message arrives is one of maximum tension. On Tuesday, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, displayed photographs of Cuban political prisoners at the General Assembly—among them Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel "Osorbo" Castillo Pérez—and accused the business conglomerate GAESA of managing a fund of $18 billion without "a single cent going to the Cuban people."
On the same day, State Security released Otero Alcántara from the prison in Guanajay in an operation whose destination was unknown to his family, just two days before the official expiration of his five-year sentence.
The legislative pressure from Cotton aligns with a sanctions policy that the Trump administration has consistently applied since January 2026, with over 240 restrictive measures against the regime.
On May 1, Trump signed Executive Order 14404, which enables secondary sanctions against third parties linked to repression in Cuba, and in June Marco Rubio announced a new round of sanctions against five entities within the regime's economic framework, including GAESA and RAFIN S.A.
The island, meanwhile, is experiencing an unprecedented energy crisis. Last Monday marked the seventh total disconnection of the National Electric System in 18 months, which sparked street protests in Jaimanitas and other localities. In June, 107 protests were recorded across the country, nearly doubling the previous historical high.
According to human rights organizations, in May 2026 there were 1,281 political prisoners in Cuba, and 338 individuals were still serving sentences directly related to the protests of July 11, the largest social uprising on the island since 1959.
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