11 May 2026
The Trump administration has intensified its pressure on Cuba, placing new sanctions on investment and trade with key sectors of the island’s economy.
On 1 May President Trump signed an Executive Order seeking to sanction companies and individuals anywhere in the world at any level who are engaged in the Cuban “energy, defence and related materiel, metals and mining, financial services, or security sector of the Cuban economy.” Foreign financial institutions may also be subject to sanctions if there is evidence that they are involved in money transfers on behalf of persons subject to the new restrictions.
The widely drawn measure enables the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to include any other sector of the Cuban economy, and provides for penalties that could see assets, property, businesses, and bank accounts in the US frozen, and individuals denied entry into the US. The US President justified the new sanctions on the basis that his Administration views Cuba as a serious threat to American national security and foreign policy.
US Treasury sanctions GAESA and Moa Nickel
Subsequently, on 7 May the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) set a deadline of June 5, 2026, for foreign companies with business interests in Cuba to liquidate all operations involving GAESA, or any entity in which the powerful military linked conglomerate directly or indirectly owns a 50% or greater stake. It also directly sanctioned Brigadier General Ania Lastres who heads GAESA, adding her to its list of Specially Designated Cuban Nationals.
GAESA is estimated to control over 40% of the Cuban economy in multiple linked sectors, including hotels and tourism, remittances and financial services, telecommunications, fisheries, construction, stores and supermarkets, logistics and the Mariel Special Development Zone.
At the same time, OFAC sanctioned the joint venture Moa Nickel SA for operating or having operated in the metals and mining sector of the Cuban economy. In response, the Canadian parter in the venture , the mining company, Sherritt International, ended it involvement (See Canada below).
Measure aims to encourage political and economic reforms
Following the announcement of the new measures, the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who is also US Acting National Security Advisor, wrote on X: “Today’s sanctions demonstrate that the Trump Administration will not stand idly by while Cuba’s communist regime threatens our national security in our hemisphere. We will continue taking action until the regime implements all the necessary political and economic reforms.”
Justifying the decision, the State Department said that “the Trump Administration is taking decisive action to protect US national security and deprive the communist regime and the Cuban armed forces of access to illicit assets.”
The new US regulations come as media reports quoting unnamed White House sources suggest that while Washington’s principal focus remains on finding a diplomatic solution, including the departure of some senior figures, it is also considering a military operation aimed at “regime change.”
Latest OFAC Cuba guidelines create new uncertainties
In an apparent attempt to create uncertainty among foreign investors and those involved in trade and the provision of services for Cuba, OFAC noted that foreign actors who maintain business relationships with the Cuban government are at risk of sanctions. It noted, however, that the executive order “does not automatically impose sanctions on all persons who operate or have operated” in the designated sectors.
In a statement, OFAC stressed that the US government does not intend to sanction foreign individuals and recommends that entities unable to liquidate their operations before the deadline contact it.
In doing so it warned, however, that sanctions will be imposed against foreign individuals or entities that “are involved in specific harmful activities related to Cuba.” It also noted that it will seek to monitor foreign persons or companies that “act on behalf of or representing the Government of Cuba,” as well as those “complicit in serious human rights violations or acts of corruption related to Cuba”.
OFAC noted that permission granted under General License No 1, which guarantees that some economic activities already permitted will not be disrupted by the new sanctions, made clear that “persons subject to US jurisdiction remain prohibited from engaging in transactions with GAESA, including in connection with the winding up of a foreign person’s activities with GAESA, unless separately authorised by OFAC.”
The executive order can be accessed at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/05/imposing-sanctions-on-those-responsible-for-repression-in-cuba-and-for-threats-to-united-states-national-security-and-foreign-policy/
The OFAC guidance can be found at: https://ofac.treasury.gov/faqs/added/2026-05-07
The State Department announcement can be found at: https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/05/u-s-sanctions-target-cubas-military-regime-elites
Cuba describes the new measures as cruel and intended to intimidate
Speaking about the new US sanctions shortly after they were announced, President Díaz-Canel described them as “cruel,” and “a unilateral aggression against a nation and a population whose only ambition is to live in peace, masters of their destiny and without the pernicious interference of US imperialism.” The measures exacerbated, he said, “the already difficult situation facing our country.” The Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the decision as “an act of ruthless economic aggression” intended to intimidate foreign governments, banks, and companies that maintain economic relations with Cuba, and as an attempt to create the conditions to justify “more dangerous actions, including military aggression.”
Rubio justifies actions on grounds of foreign threats to US national security
Speaking to Fox News on 27 April before the new sanctions were announced, US Secretary of State Rubio sought to explain the reason why President Trump had declared Cuba an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the US.
The designation, he said, related to US security assessments associated with Cuba’s links to foreign intelligence agencies and activities in the hemisphere which Washington considers unacceptable. “We are not going to allow a foreign military, intelligence, or security apparatus to operate with impunity 90 miles away,” Rubio said during an interview mainly relating to the Middle East.
Cuba, he told Fox News’ viewers, is on the one hand “a failed state,” and on the other, “a country hosting adversaries and competitors,” before noting that “the Chinese, the Russians, and others routinely use Cuba for their own purposes, just 90 miles from our shores.” This proximity, he observed, is what makes the Island “different from anything in the Middle East or anything happening in Asia. It’s literally 90 miles from Key West, just over 100 miles from Mar-a-Lago. Closer, impossible. That’s why it matters to us; that’s why it’s important,” he said.
Then, in an indication of why Washington has so far taken a gradualist approach to negotiations and change involving the departure of some members of Cuba’s leadership, he said, “if a humanitarian collapse were to occur, it would be “bad for our country.” The possibility of improvement, on the contrary, he observed, is contingent on “very substantial and serious economic reforms,” which are, however, impossible “with these people in charge.”
Rubio concluded by stating: “We will not allow a foreign military, intelligence, or security apparatus to operate with impunity 90 miles off the coast of the United States. That will not happen under a Trump presidency.”
Rubio’s interview came just before a US military exercise, FLEX 2026, involving the deployment of drones and other unmanned equipment took place in US territorial waters north of Cuba. The exercise served to test the integration of artificial intelligence, unmanned systems, and traditional forces in maritime operations in relation to a new Southern Command Autonomous Warfare Command covering Central America, South America and the Caribbean.
Earlier, in the margins of the US Western Hemisphere 2026 Heads of Mission Conference held in Florida, Rubio posed with General Francis Donovan, the new head of US Southern Command, in front of a map of Cuba. The Conference focused on “U.S. efforts to counter threats that undermine security, stability and democracy in our hemisphere,” Southern Command noted in a post on X.
11 May 2026, Issue 1316
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