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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced this Tuesday sanctions against five Cuban entities that generate revenue for the regime, including three associated with the previously sanctioned Business Administration Group SA (GAESA), and a member of the Castro family, in accordance with President Trump’s Executive Order (EO) 14404 of May 1, 2026, which imposes sanctions on those responsible for repression on the island and threats to U.S. national security and foreign policy.
n” “nThrough a State Department statement, Rubio indicated that “GAESA continues to operate as the financial arm of the Cuban regime’s repressive security apparatus“; while detailing: “Two of the entities designated today are financial institutions linked to GAESA, associated with moving money on behalf of the regime, and one is a logistics company linked to GAESA that carries out the regime’s orders throughout the island”.
n” “nThen he explained: “I am also designating two other entities that generate revenue for Cuba through the exploitation of the island’s mineral and metal reserves, including the Cuban state-owned company GeoMinera”.
n” “nFinally, he stressed: “I am designating the wife of Alejandro Castro Espín, who had already been previously designated under Executive Order 14404. These entities and actors finance, facilitate, or benefit from the regime’s pernicious activities, both in Cuba and throughout our hemisphere,” he concluded.
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n” “nLast month, the United States sanctioned the Cuban military conglomerate GAESA, its director, and the mining company Moa Nickel, a joint venture with Canadian participation, as part of an economic offensive aimed at cutting off the regime’s revenue. That announcement coincided with the withdrawal of Canada’s Sherritt International from its joint operations in Cuba, a move that analysts interpreted as a sign that Washington’s pressure on Havana’s foreign partners is beginning to take effect.
n” “nThe new measures are applied under the executive order signed by President Donald Trump on May 1, which extended the scope of U.S. sanctions to cover almost any foreign entity that maintains commercial ties with strategic sectors of the island: energy, defense, security, and finance.
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Rubio accompanied last month’s announcement with a statement in which he pointed out that the goal was to “deprive the communist regime and the military forces of Cuba of access to illicit assets”. He had also warned that one could expect “additional designations in the coming days and weeks”.
n” “nThe primary target of the designations is the Business Administration Group S.A., known by its acronym GAESA. It is the business conglomerate linked to the Revolutionary Armed Forces which, according to repeated estimates by the State Department itself, controls around 40% of the Cuban economy.
n” “nMarco Rubio announced sanctions against five Cuban entities that generate revenue for the regime, including three associated with GAESA.
n” “nTheir income would exceed the state budget by more than three times, and an investigation by the Miami Herald based on leaked financial documents estimated their assets at nearly 18 billion dollars. The holding company spans sectors as diverse as high-end tourism—through Gaviota S.A.—, foreign currency retail, remittances, port logistics, and financial services.
GAESA was created in 1995, during the so-called “Special Period” that followed the Soviet collapse, on the initiative of the then-Minister of the Armed Forces, Raúl Castro. What began as a mechanism to provide the military establishment with its own resources eventually became a structure parallel to the State, opaque, and immune to any audit.
n” “nThe entity operates as a public limited company, does not publish balance sheets, does not report to Parliament, and, as the Comptroller General herself admitted in 2024 before being dismissed, not even the State oversight body has jurisdiction to review its accounts. Economist Pavel Vidal, a specialist in Cuban finance, described it precisely: it is an economy within another. A man crosses a street in Havana, Cuba, on Monday, May 25, 2026 (AP Photo/Jorge Luis Baños)
What the new US sanctions against the Cuban regime could mean
n” “nIn dialogue with Infobae, the opposition leader and former political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer, highlighted that the new measures “must be understood for what they really are: reinforcement of the maximum pressure policy against a criminal dictatorship that has been in power for more than six decades, persecuting those who dissent, imprisoning, denying basic freedoms, and condemning the people to the most extreme misery”.
n” “nFerrer recalled that, during this year, “Washington has significantly increased pressure on the dictatorship. On January 29, the White House declared a national emergency related to threats attributed to the Castro-communist regime. Then, on May 1, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that expanded the possibilities of sanctioning individuals, entities, and family members linked to repression, corruption, the military apparatus, the energy sector, security, and the financing of the regime. In June, the United States applied new sanctions against actors of the repressive apparatus and against structures linked to anti-American activities. It also sanctioned CUPET, the Cuban state oil and gas company. These measures directly strike an essential source of resources for the dictatorship’s machinery of control, surveillance, and repression,” the dissident remarked.
n” “nFerrer recalled that, before this year, “U.S. policy had already taken relevant steps”. And he mentioned: “The Trump Administration reactivated in 2019 Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, allowing lawsuits against those who traffic in properties confiscated by the regime. In 2025, Washington once again hardened its policy toward Cuba, kept the island on the list of State sponsors of terrorism, reinforced restrictions on transactions with GAESA and its affiliated companies, and reaffirmed the limitations on U.S. tourism that fuels the Cuban military apparatus”.
n” “nAnd he continued: “Those who criticize these measures often repeat that sanctions harm the people, and it is true. They affect as a strong and indispensable medicine affects to put an end to a serious illness. Chemotherapy produces strong adverse reactions, but applied in time it can cure cancer. Doing nothing against the serious illness or only making its diagnosis or applying insufficient remedy, prolongs the patient’s suffering and leads irremediably to death. Those responsible for the Cuban tragedy are the leaders who monopolize power, control state enterprises, manage tourism, hoard foreign currency, and use the country’s resources to sustain a system of domination”.
n” “nThe former political prisoner then highlighted that “true solidarity with the Cuban people” does not consist of financing the regime or providing it with resources to prolong its existence. “It consists of depriving it of the means with which it represses, corrupts, and buys loyalties. Maximum pressure is not a punishment against Cuba: it is a tool to open paths toward freedom, the release of all political prisoners, respect for human rights, and a democratic transition,” he concluded.
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n” “nFinally, he indicated that the United States, to the extent that it “punishes the oppressive regime, sends direct aid to the Cuban people and offers to increase assistance through direct channels that do not pass through the hands of the corrupt dictatorship. Sanctioning the dictatorship and directly supporting the people, until the democratization of the Greater Antilles is achieved, is what the European Union and the majority of the countries of the American continent should also do.”
n” “n“Every well-directed sanction, every lawsuit for stolen properties, and every restriction against the dictatorship’s companies brings closer the day when Cuba ceases to be a hostage of a communist elite and belongs once again to all Cubans,” he concluded.
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