The Biden administration has imposed new sanctions on Cuba’s defense minister and the Interior Ministry, with President Biden warning, “This is just the beginning.” The move comes in response to recent anti-government protests denouncing the economic crisis during the pandemic and reports of government repression. People have been scrambling to cope amid shortages of medicine, food and other resources largely due to catastrophic U.S. sanctions. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez denounced the sanctions as “unfounded and slanderous” and said the U.S. should enforce such measures on itself instead “because of daily acts of police repression and brutality.” This comes as over 400 politicians, intellectuals, clergy members, artists, activists and former heads of state are calling on Biden to immediately lift the 243 sanctions the Trump administration imposed on Cuba. The group — which includes former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Noam Chomsky and Cornel West — printed a full-page ad in today’s New York Times headlined “Let Cuba Live.”