US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Cuban government's "brutal crackdown against its own people five years ago is yet another reminder of the unique misery and evil that is innate to the communist system".

"Otero Alcántara's only 'crime' was refusing to stay silent and using his art to demand the basic freedoms everyday Cubans have been denied for almost seven decades," he said in a statement.

The cases of Otero Alcántara and ​fellow SIM member Maykel Castillo, known as "Osorbo", who is serving an eight-year prison sentence, have been a recurring source of diplomatic tension between Washington and Havana.

That tension has swelled in recent months, with the Trump administration hitting Cuba with an oil blockade, sanctions and openly threatening military intervention.

Last week the BBC's US news partner CBS reported that the Pentagon was looking at military options in Cuba, although it quoted officials as saying the briefings did not mean any decision to carry out an operation had been made.

The US oil blockade has exacerbated an ongoing fuel crisis, with Cubans facing extended blackouts and food shortages in recent months.

The US also announced in May an unprecedented murder indictment against former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, over the 1996 downing of two planes, an incident that killed four people. Russia and China condemned the move.

Tourism has taken a major hit amid the US sanctions, with fewer than 360,000 people visiting the island in the first five months of 2026, a decrease of nearly 60% compared to the same period last year, according to Onei.

Washington warned in May that a peaceful agreement with the Caribbean nation was unlikely.