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The United States sanctioned the Cuban military conglomerate GAESA this Thursday, its director, and the Moa Nickel mining company, a joint venture with Canadian participation, as part of an economic offensive aimed at cutting off the income of the regime that governs the island. The announcement, made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, coincided with the withdrawal of Canada's Sherritt International from its joint operations in Cuba, a move that analysts interpret as a sign that Washington's pressures on Havana's foreign partners are beginning to take effect.
In a message on his social media, Rubio stated: “The sanctions imposed today demonstrate that the Trump administration will not remain impassive while the Cuban communist regime threatens our national security in our hemisphere. We will continue to take measures until the regime implements all the necessary political and economic reforms”.
The new measures are applied under the executive order signed by President Donald Trump on May 1, which extended the scope of US sanctions to cover almost any foreign entity that maintains commercial ties with strategic sectors of the island: energy, defense, security, and finance. Rubio accompanied the announcement with a statement in which he pointed out that the objective was to "deprive the communist regime and the military forces of Cuba of access to illicit assets." He warned that "additional designations can be expected in the coming days and weeks."We recommend reading: United States targets Latin American cartels as the main enemy
The main target of the new designations is the Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A., known by its acronym GAESA. This is the business conglomerate linked to the Revolutionary Armed Forces that, according to estimates reiterated by the State Department itself, controls around 40% of the Cuban economy. Its income would exceed the state budget by more than three times, and an investigation by the newspaper Miami Herald based on leaked financial documents calculated its assets at around 18 billion dollars. The holding company covers sectors as diverse as high-level tourism —through Gaviota S.A.—, retail trade in foreign currency, remittances, port logistics and financial services.
Miguel Díaz-Canel waves a Cuban flag during a march in front of the United States embassy to protest the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and the killing of Cuban soldiers in the American attack, in Havana, Cuba, January 16, 2026 REUTERS/Norlys Perez/File Photo GAESA was created in 1995, during the so-called Special Period that followed the Soviet collapse, at 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. The entity operates as a public limited company, does not publish balance sheets, does not account to Parliament and, as admitted in 2024 by the Comptroller General herself before being dismissed, not even the State's oversight body has jurisdiction to review its accounts. The economist Pavel Vidal, a specialist in Cuban finances, described it with precision: it is an economy within another.The sanctions also affect Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, appointed to head GAESA in 2022 after the sudden death of Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, who directed the conglomerate for decades and was the son-in-law of Raúl Castro. Lastres Morera holds the rank of brigadier general in the Armed Forces, which illustrates the military nature of an organization formally registered as a commercial company. The third sanctioned entity is Moa Nickel S.A., a joint venture created in 1994 between Sherritt and the Cuban state-owned Compañía General de Níquel to exploit nickel and cobalt deposits in the province of Holguín. Washington accuses this company of benefiting from assets that, according to its statement, were expropriated by the regime from American individuals and corporations.
The most visible immediate impact was the withdrawal of Sherritt International, which announced the suspension of its direct participation in joint ventures in Cuba hours before Rubio made public his list of designations, according to Bloomberg.You can also read:United States approved the sale of guided bomb kits for Ukraine for USD 374 million
The company began to repatriate its expatriate employees and asked its Cuban partners to withdraw from Canada the personnel sent to that country. Its shares fell by nearly 26% on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Sherritt's departure is not an isolated episode: last February, the company had already reduced operations due to the fuel blockade that Washington imposed on Cuba in January. The company, which had a market capitalization of $4.8 billion in 2008, is currently trading at just $186 million, a reflection of years of deterioration due to the Cuban structural crisis and the restrictions of the embargo. Trump's offensive against Cuba is part of sustained pressure. Since January, Washington blocked the supply of oil to the island, a measure that aggravated the already chronic blackouts that in numerous provinces exceeded fifteen and twenty hours a day. The president has gone so far as to say that he will take control of Cuba "almost immediately" and has mentioned the possibility of moving the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to Caribbean waters.
