María Elvira Salazar
Florida Republican congresswoman, hardline Cuba sanctions advocate
María Elvira Salazar has spent 2026 pushing Washington toward harsher Cuba sanctions: on 10 July she and three colleagues urged Rubio to sanction Cuba's overseas medical-mission programme, a request the 13 July sanctions wave left unanswered.
Last refreshed: 17 July 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
What licences do Florida Republicans want to revoke from Cuba?
Timeline for María Elvira Salazar
Co-signed the letter urging CSMC sanctions
Cuba Dispatch: Florida four target the medical missionsAligned publicly with the Giménez endorsement of EO 14404
Cuba Dispatch: Florida Republicans take credit for EO 14404Co-signed joint letter to OFAC and BIS demanding Cuba licence revocation
Cuba Dispatch: Florida Republicans push for Cuba licence purgeBackground
María Elvira Salazar has represented Florida's 27th Congressional District, covering much of Miami-Dade, since January 2021, when she defeated Democratic incumbent Donna Shalala. A Cuban-American former television journalist for Univision and Telemundo, she was Born in Miami to Cuban exile parents and sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Her political weight reflects the outsized electoral influence of the Cuban-American exile community in south Florida's swing districts: congressional letters from committee members such as Salazar typically draw formal agency responses, giving her demands practical force well beyond her single vote. She has consistently opposed any normalisation with the Díaz-Canel government and championed maximum-pressure Cuba policy throughout her time in Congress, working in a bloc with fellow Florida Republicans Mario Díaz-Balart and Carlos Giménez that has become the House's most persistent voice for tightening the embargo.
Salazar keeps pushing for harsher sanctions
Salazar has used her seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee to press for maximalist Cuba sanctions since early 2026. On 11 February she co-signed a letter with Mario Díaz-Balart and Carlos Giménez demanding OFAC and the Commerce Department revoke every licence authorising US business with Cuban state entities, citing the LIBERTAD Act. Treasury did not respond formally, though the 25 March Venezuela licence, which blocked the state while permitting private buyers, followed the logic her letter set out.
On 10 July Salazar put her name to a four-member letter demanding CSMC, Cuba's overseas medical-mission operator, be sanctioned as a forced-labour scheme, the second such letter she has co-signed this year, after February's licence-purge demand. The 13 July sanctions wave hit tourism and trade entities instead, leaving her specific request unactioned.