BASEL, SWITZERLAND — The U.S. government sanctioned Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and members of the Castro family in May 2026. The sanctions were issued in response to ongoing human rights violations and authoritarian governance in Cuba.

Tom Keatinge, director of the Centre for Finance and Security at the Royal United Services Institute, stated the importance of enforcement in sanctions. "The keys to effective sanctions are design, implementation, and – critically – enforcement to ensure the restrictions are viewed as credible," Keatinge said. "Sanctions work best when countries are aligned, as this reduces loopholes and facilitates consistent implementation by the private sector," he said.

"The varied action of the U.S. blunts this need for and benefit from alignment," he said. "Despite an increase in enforcement action in Europe, the United States OFAC remains the only truly feared sanctions agency," he said. "The shift in sanctions focus by the United States poses challenges for both governments in Europe and the private sector globally," Keatinge said.

E.U. sanctions are agreed upon collectively in Brussels, but enforcement primarily remains the responsibility of individual member states. The European Commission established minimum enforcement standards for national sanctions authorities. "The E.U. is constantly breaking taboos with each new sanctions package," said Mihkel Märtens, a sanctions officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Estonia. "If you would have asked anyone working in E.U. sanctions five years ago whether the E.U. would start adopting anything that remotely resembles secondary sanctions, they would have just laughed," Märtens said.

In 2025, Western sanctions efforts targeted Russian oil revenues used for the war in Ukraine. The E.U. and U.K. blacklisted hundreds of crude-carrying vessels operating outside Western oversight and targeted financial and commercial networks that facilitated sanctions evasion. The U.K. Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation has grown to more than 130 full-time staff members since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.