Trading With the Enemy Act

Trading With the Enemy Act is the 1917 US statute that lets the president restrict trade with a hostile power. Congress moved new peacetime sanctions authority to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in 1977 but grandfathered the Cuba programme, so Cuba is the only country still sanctioned under the older Act. It underlies the Cuban Assets Control Regulations, the rulebook the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control applies to every Cuba-related designation.

Authority under the Act lapses each year unless the president renews it. Presidential Determination 2026-21, published in the Federal Register on 25 August 2026, extended that authority to 14 September 2027.

The renewal is procedural, but it sets the floor beneath the entire 2026 designation campaign: because authority was extended to 14 September 2027, nothing forces a pause in Washington's Cuba sanctions programme before that date.