Cuba Pressure Campaign Widens as Fuel Seizures Hit Port Everglades and Talks Stall Over Díaz-Canel

The Trump administration's pressure campaign on Cuba widened again this week, as federal agents in Miami announced the seizure of 90 Cuba-bound biodiesel shipments, much of it caught at Port Everglades in Broward County, and a new report said quiet U.S. talks with a member of the Castro family have stalled over Washington's demand that President Miguel Díaz-Canel leave power. For South Florida's Cuban American community, the developments land alongside new Treasury travel limits, rolling blackouts on the island and a Cuban migration law that will change the rules for exiles who travel home.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Miami native, has framed the campaign as a test of whether Havana's leaders will change course. In a Sept. 28 interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, he said Cuba's leaders believe they can wait out the administration. "They are wrong, and they will learn the lesson the hard way if they don't correct," he said, according to the Miami Herald.

Fuel seizures reach Florida's ports

On Wednesday, Oct. 7, Homeland Security Investigations and U.S. Customs and Border Protection said they had intercepted 90 biodiesel shipments worth nearly $3 million that were bound for ENETEC S.A., a Havana-based, state-owned fuel wholesaler that the Treasury Department sanctioned in July, CBS News reported. Authorities first spotted the exports in early September leaving Port Everglades and the Port of Houston. At Port Everglades, they seized 71 tanks holding roughly 500,000 gallons; at Houston, 19 shipments totaling about 120,000 gallons.

Jose Figueroa, special agent in charge of HSI Miami, said the agency would "continue to identify, disrupt and investigate efforts to evade U.S. sanctions." The agencies cited suspected violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and federal export rules but have not named the exporters or announced charges.

It was the second fuel announcement in a week. On Oct. 2, the Coast Guard disclosed that it had intercepted the cargo ship Grace on Sept. 5 in waters between Cuba and Mexico, and escorted it to Mexico, where Mexican naval inspectors found large quantities of fuel hidden in its ballast tanks. The Coast Guard also confirmed it seized the Jaira Provider, carrying more than 200,000 gallons of fuel, on June 28.

Talks stall over Díaz-Canel

The Atlantic reported on Oct. 5, in a story by Kevin Sieff, that contacts between U.S. officials and Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, a grandson of former leader Raúl Castro known in Cuba as "El Cangrejo," have stalled after Washington made Díaz-Canel's departure a condition of any deal, according to accounts of the report published by Cuban and Cuban American outlets. Rodríguez Castro holds no formal diplomatic post but is the son of the late general who ran GAESA, the military-controlled business conglomerate.

The same report said the U.S. military commitment in the Middle East tied to the conflict with Iran had left fewer resources available for any Venezuela-style operation against Cuba, according to those accounts. The Miami Herald had earlier reported that a U.S. offer of oil and investment tied to political change included Díaz-Canel's possible exit among its conditions. Díaz-Canel acknowledged in March that Cuban officials had held talks with Washington, while Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla has said there are no current negotiations.

Rubio's message to Havana

In the Hannity interview, Rubio said Cuba had "already fallen" and called it "a failed state in every sense of the word," a government still "capable of jailing and killing people" but "not a functional government and it's not a functional country." He said close to 20% of the island's population has left since 2021, and that "you cannot have economic freedom in Cuba if you don't have political freedom first."

Rubio also said he hoped people who control the island's weapons and security apparatus would "open their eyes to the reality of what they're facing," remarks that Cuban exile outlets including CiberCuba read as a message to the armed forces. Asked on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly whether he would rule out military action, Rubio said, "I'm certainly not going to threaten anything," and stressed the administration's preference for diplomacy, the Herald reported. President Trump predicted the two countries would "make a deal" and said he did not expect military force to be needed. CBS News has reported that the Army Reserve was asked in late September to examine support for U.S. Southern Command, which is headquartered in Doral.

Blackouts and shortages on the island

Cuba's energy crisis has deepened since oil from Venezuela and Mexico dried up after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January. The island suffered nationwide blackouts on Aug. 2 and Sept. 18, and rolling outages in Havana have disrupted water pumping for roughly 3.5 million people, according to Reuters reporting cited by CBS News. Outages have hit lighting, refrigeration and communications. Havana calls the fuel blockade "economic warfare."

New travel rules for Florida families

Changes to the Treasury Department's Cuban Assets Control Regulations took effect Sept. 30, according to the Office of Foreign Assets Control. They eliminate the general authorization for group people-to-people educational travel, except for trips where a traveler made a travel-related purchase such as a flight before that date, and end the authorization for attending or organizing professional meetings in Cuba. Travelers already on the island under that category have until Oct. 30 to wrap up and leave. U.S. banks may no longer open or maintain accounts solely for Cuba's independent private entrepreneurs.

The rules leave in place the channels many Florida households rely on most, including family visits and authorized family remittances, though OFAC revised the family-visits provision to exclude indirect financial transactions with entities on the State Department's Cuba Restricted List.

Havana is changing its own rules, too. Cuba's Migration Law 171, published in the Official Gazette on May 5, takes effect Nov. 1, according to Cuban and exile media. It drops the long-standing rule under which Cubans who stayed abroad more than 24 months lost residency rights, replacing it with an "effective migratory residence" standard based on time spent on the island and family or economic ties. Coverage published Oct. 7 by CiberCuba highlighted provisions that allow authorities to bar citizens from leaving, including to preserve a qualified workforce or protect official information, and to restrict the entry of Cuban citizens in situations authorities define, a concern for Cuban Americans in Florida who travel to see relatives.

What's next

Federal agents have not said whether charges will follow the Port Everglades and Houston seizures. Travelers using the former professional meetings authorization face the Oct. 30 deadline, and Cuba's new migration law takes effect Nov. 1. Treasury has said fuller Cuba sanctions regulations implementing the May executive order are still to come. Whether the stalled channel with Havana reopens, and on what terms, remains the open question for Miami's exile community, which has watched for signs of a breakthrough since Díaz-Canel first confirmed the talks in March.