Shortly after the celebrations of the centenary of the leader of the Cuban revolution Fidel Castro, the United States announced on Thursday (20) the imposition of new sanctions against Cuba, targeting nine organizations and three individuals, who are accused by the government of President Donald Trump of activities against the interests of the United States.

The main target is the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), but the sanctions also affect the Cuban Ministry of Construction and seven other organizations. Among those sanctioned are Fernando Gonzalez Llort, president of ICAP and a member of the Cuban Five, Cuban intelligence officers arrested by the US in 1998; Noemi Ramona Rabaza Fernandez, first vice-president of ICAP; and Leima Martinez Freire, ICAP’s director for North America.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that ICAP maintains a broad network of influence within the United States, which aims to “identify, recruit, and radicalize subversives, operating under the pretext of educational or cultural exchange.”

According to him, Cuba used the events of Fidel’s centenary, celebrated on August 13, to activate this network, in order to bring sympathizers to Havana to interact with government authorities.

“Today’s designations make it clear that the Trump administration will not tolerate the Cuban regime’s efforts to fund its repression or continue its decades-long campaign of anti-American subversive activities,” Rubio stated.

Since the end of January , the United States government has severely restricted imports of oil and fuels that Cuba needs to maintain the normal functioning of the country.

Through an executive order, President Donald Trump threatens to impose sanctions on any country or company that “sells or supplies” crude oil to the island.

Energy suffocation is felt in every corner of Cuba. There are regions where families go for entire days without electricity, and when the power finally returns, it lasts only two or three hours before being cut off again.

As the U.S. military’s critical munitions are overused in the Iran war and underproduced at home, companies are eagerly pitching new low-cost solutions, and the Pentagon is keen to make big deals. But defense experts say those new, cheaper missile options—and the push to rapidly produce existing weapons—aren’t the short-term fix needed to overcome the long-existing problem exacerbated by the Iran war. However, they will provide the military much-needed options in the future. At the Space and Missile Defense Symposium last week, Boeing unveiled a low-cost seeker missile, with crucial hit-to-kill guidance technology used on the PAC-3 missile, made of commercial, off-the-shelf components. At the same conference, Northrop Grumman released its “cost-effective” 50 millimeter gun-based drone defense system to “address a critical short-range air defense gap.” And last month at the Farnborough International Air Show, Lockheed Martin announced a more affordable, proximity-detonation version of its Patriot missile. But those solutions will likely only have a significant impact on the Pentagon’s stockpiles if the Iran war drags on and if officials quickly award contracts. “The push for low-cost munitions is unlikely to have a material effect on the Iran War—at least not anytime soon,” said Becca Wasser, Bloomberg Economics’s defense lead. And, she said, making enough new weapons, at the right cost, is only part of the problem. “Getting to a lower cost for exquisite munitions will take time. It requires developing new weapons or adapting old ones, which means going through new testing and evaluation processes,” she said. “If the Iran war drags on for years, that’s when the drive for lower cost interceptors and munitions could have an impact,” because “wars of attrition require enormous amounts of material—and the lower price tag helps.”

Right now, the Pentagon is blowing through its prized Patriot and Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense missiles, and they won’t get replaced anytime soon, defense analysts say—even with novel framework deals. In the last year, top officials have been pushing those deals with major defense primes and are continuing the administration’s rallying cry for the firms to build and innovate faster. Some of those are starting to bear fruit. This week, RTX netted a seven-year, $22.9 billion Tomahawk missile contract with the U.S. Navy under a new deal, showing that the military is making big bets on legacy systems as it pursues newer options. But those legacy munitions still take time to manufacture. In a recent report, the American Enterprise Institute think tank found that it would take 27 years for defense contractors to produce THAADs at the current maximum annual rate of 96 interceptors a year to reach quantities the Pentagon wants.

There “will be a window of vulnerability for several years until inventories return to their previous levels, and another several years before they get to the levels that war planners desire,” according to a May report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “These newer, lower-cost munitions absolutely should be part of the way we fix this. But we shouldn’t be kidding ourselves that they’re going to be ready quickly en masse, are operational, and our forces are trained and understand how to use them,” said Todd Harrison, AEI’s defense budget expert. “It will take years, some sooner than others. And I think it remains to be seen if they’re going to be available in large quantities sooner than the reorders of the more exquisite existing weapons.”

Framework deals aren’t contracts

The Pentagon has already inked framework agreements for low-cost and traditional munitions. Overall, experts say they are a step in the right direction. “It’s not a contract, but it helps give the companies a demand signal they can take to their boards and their shareholders, and…it reduces their risks, so they can make increased capital expenditures, or capex, investments,” said Jerry McGinn, a CSIS senior fellow and the director of the Center for the Industrial Base. McGinn teased an upcoming CSIS analysis that found publicly-traded companies with framework agreements increased their capex investment by 31 percent from the second quarter of 2025 to the same quarter this year. “They’re clearly investing more and it’s hard not to tie it to those framework agreements. But the challenge is that the framework agreement is an agreement…It’s a best faith effort. It’s not a contract,” he said. Congress still has to appropriate the money, the companies have to get on contract, and then they have to deliver, McGinn said. And none of that is guaranteed. McGinn said he’s keen to watch how many contracts come out of the framework deals. One of the first major contracts was a seven-year, $35 billion undefinitized contract with Lockheed Martin for THAADs, which leaves some aspects of the agreement open—to be finalized before the contract starts. Undefinitized contract actions, or UCAs, require special approval and are used for urgent work that all parties “agree needs to begin before final agreement can be reached on price.”

Lockheed Martin executives said they’re up to the task. “If you look at the framework agreements we’ve signed, we’ve leaned into the ask that the country has made of us. Lockheed Martin has never shied away from stepping up to the line and doing what’s been asked,” Johnathon Caldwell, Lockheed’s vice president of strategic and missile defense systems, told reporters at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium. “We’re in an unprecedented era where speed matters, and we’re able to bring capabilities to market in weeks and months, not years and decades. We’re putting our money on the table, and our commitment.” It’s a tall order for companies to surge production capacity of those munitions, especially amid supply chain bottlenecks for major components such as solid rocket motors. But it helps that the Pentagon’s actually allocating and committing money to those problems, Bloomberg’s Wasser said. “The framework agreements are just that—-agreements, not contracts. Until these are on contract, you won’t see a lot of companies surging production,” she said. “All these efforts—sending the demand signal to industry, qualifying more [solid rocket motor] suppliers, ramping up missile procurement—help, but they don’t solve the problem.”

Low-cost munitions, long-term solutions

Lockheed’s more affordable version of the PAC-3 missile comes with some tradeoffs, and a timeline. “We basically modified the front end, modified the back end, took out the [Attitude Control Motors], so it’s no longer hit-to-kill,” Jason Reynolds, Lockheed’s vice president and general manager of integrated air and missile defense, told reporters during a briefing at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium, adding that it integrates with existing munitions systems “at reduced range.” However, PAC-3 ACE isn’t expecting a first flight until early 2028, and won’t go to production until 18 months after that. “Everybody wants more air defense interceptors as quickly as possible, and anything that is as capable or nearly as capable as a PAC-3 MSC is a very attractive offer,” Reynolds said on the sidelines of the conference. There’s no doubt that a more affordable version of the highly-sought after PAC-3 is useful, said Tom Karako, CSIS’ director of the Missile Defense Project. But the question remains: Will the Pentagon buy it? “PAC-3 ACE is not a contract. It’s a concept that they’ve had for a while and they rolled it out,” he said. “I think the time is right for PAC-3 ACE, but it’s a concept, and if you’re really attacking the root cause problem, you know the root cause here is the customer.” A few weeks after the PAC-3 ACE contract was announced, Boeing unveiled its Ultra Low-Cost Seeker. It’s a push to make the company’s precision-guided technology, which makes Patriot missiles deadly and expensive, more accessible and affordable. “The system uses commercial off-the-shelf components that Boeing adapted for military use,” the company said in a news release this month. “ULCS leverages our seeker expertise developed on programs like PAC-3 MSE, but delivers a different seeker capability that can be applied at low cost to numerous defensive and offensive products to address lower-complexity threats.” The seeker is still under development, and more flight tests are expected in 2027. Officials declined to provide exact figures on how much more affordable the new product was compared to existing technology.

Overall, there seem to be more options for cheaper replacements to hypersonic or cruise missiles than for top-tier air defense missiles like Patriots and THAAD weapons, said Mark Montgomery, a retired rear admiral and senior fellow for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. New entrants are also getting in the low-cost missiles game—and landing contracts. There’s Anduril’s Barracuda, Zone 5 Technologies’ Rusty Dagger, and Coaspire’s cruise missile. “We’re seeing it in hypersonic missiles with a company called Castelion…But we’re not seeing it in air defense weapons,” Montgomery said. X-Bow Systems revealed its modestly priced $100,000 drone destroyer at the Farnborough International Airshow. The company also landed a $11 million deal this week with the Missile Defense Agency to develop and test low-cost interceptors.

Buenos Aires, Aug 25 (Prensa Latina) The opposition in Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies is preparing an offensive against the Executive branch when the chamber opens tomorrow for the session that will debate the government’s projects.

The lower house has five draft bills on its agenda for discussion, but two are the priority for the Casa Rosada: the Central Bank Reform, which seeks to modify financial regulations to prohibit or severely restrict monetary issuance.

And the second one of great importance to the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, is the Fiscal Innocence II bill, which stipulates expanding the simplified income tax regime to more taxpayers, and with it making Argentinians take the dollars that the executive branch so desperately needs out from under the mattress.

However, the opposition coalition intends to introduce the debate on extending the Disability Emergency and the family debt relief bills, designed to alleviate the burden of debt on families. Currently, six million of the nearly 21 million people in debt are unable to pay off the debts they incurred to make ends meet.

Also on the table are the SME Emergency measures, as well as the proposal to share the revenue from the liquid fuel tax. These will be discussed at the session scheduled for Wednesday.

With that in mind, the opposition not only makes the occupants of the Balcarce 50 Palace uncomfortable and creates noise in the legislative agenda of La Libertad Avanza, but also puts to the test the “dialogue-oriented deputies” who collaborate with the ruling party, since they would be pressured by projects that have popular support.

Bills to address the situation of the nearly 6 million people unable to pay their debts are piling up in the lower house. There are already almost 30 proposals, being pushed by virtually all opposition parties.

While this proliferation of initiatives reflects the deep concern within the Argentine political sphere, it also presents a challenge for the opposition, which must reconcile and unify its diverse perspectives and proposals to present a single project that unites all factions and behind which everyone can rally. At least they have begun to discuss them.

The Union for the Fatherland party has put forward a draft bill to extend the Disability Emergency until December 2027, and has garnered the signatures of leaders from various political blocs, including Defendamos Córdoba, Provincias Unidas, Innovación Federal, Frente de Izquierda de los Trabajadores, Encuentro Federal, and Coalición Cívica. Political observers believe that this initiative has a strong chance of passing given the widespread support it has received.

Other projects on the agenda include the approval of the Free Trade Agreement between Mercosur and Singapore, which will facilitate trade and tariff exchange, and the Patent Law for Argentina’s accession to the international cooperation treaty on patents.

Finally, there is the proposal to lower the VAT on cassava flour and the analysis of modifications regarding land and electoral systems.