The Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused the regime in Havana of acting as a base of operations for hostile actors and terrorist groups —including the Islamic Republic of Iran— seeking to attack the United States from less than a hundred miles from its territory.
" For too long, communist Cuba has been able to serve as a base of operations for hostile actors and terrorist groups—including the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism—to attack the United States," Rubio stated in an official State Department statement.
This document announced on Thursday the sanction against Banco Internacional de Comercio S.A. (BICSA), a Cuban state financial institution, and noted that BICSA provided financial services to the Iranian Karafarin Bank since at least 2022, an entity that the Department of the Treasury had sanctioned in 2020 under Executive Order 13902 due to its ties with the Tehran regime.
The designation was made under section 2(a)(i)(A) of Executive Order 14404, signed by President Trump on May 1, 2026, which authorizes broad sanctions against those operating in the financial sector of the Cuban economy.
For too long, Communist Cuba has been allowed to operate as an outpost for malign actors and terror groups – including the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism – to target the United States. As an immediate consequence, all assets and interests of BICSA under U.S. jurisdiction are frozen and must be reported to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Furthermore, any foreign entity engaging in transactions with the Cuban bank is exposed to secondary sanctions from Washington.
The action was coordinated with a broader operation by the Treasury Department against Iranian financial networks, which also designated the Iraqi bank International Development Bank for Investment and Finance and two Iranian entities: Jazireh International Bank Company and Chabahar International Bank Overseas Company.
Rubio was unequivocal in warning about the intentions of the Trump administration: "We will not tolerate a pariah state hosting military, intelligence, and terrorist operations less than a hundred miles from our territory."
The secretary added that Washington will continue "aggressively identifying and eliminating the financial and security interconnections of the Cuban regime with Iran and other dangerous and hostile states and actors."
The sanction against BICSA represents the third blow to the Cuban banking system in less than four months: the International Financial Bank was sanctioned on June 23 along with other entities linked to GAESA, and the Cuba’s Foreign Bank fell on September 3 in a round aimed at the financial, energy, and mining sectors.
The Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla rejected the measure and described BICSA as an "entirely legitimate bank" whose transactions "are also legitimate." Rodríguez accused Rubio of intensifying the "collective punishment" against the Cuban people and of trying to "shut off every valve" to the island's economy.
Cuba was reinstated on the list of state sponsors of terrorism on January 20, 2025, when Trump reversed his predecessor's decision, and remains on that list along with Iran and North Korea. The Trump administration claims to have imposed more than 240 sanctions against Cuba since January 2025.
The sanction comes just before the scheduled vote on October 28, 2026 in the UN General Assembly regarding the U.S. embargo against Cuba, adding a clear dimension of diplomatic pressure to Washington's financial offensive.
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