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Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced new sanctions against Cuba on Tuesday, highlighting five specific entities allegedly linked to GAESA and the Castro family.
“Today, I am designating five Cuban entities generating revenue for the Cuban regime, including three associated with the previously designated Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA), and one member of the extended Castro family pursuant to President Trump’s Executive Order (E.O.) 14404…,” Rubio said in a statement.
The Trump administration has made increasing moves to pressure the Cuban regime. Just last month, the Department of State sanctioned 11 senior Cuban government officials and three government-linked organizations associated with GAESA, RSBN previously reported.
“The situation in Cuba is devolving as the island’s corrupt, brutal and anti-American Communist regime continues to prioritize its own total control over the freedom, opportunity and basic wellbeing of the Cuban people,” Rubio said on X on Tuesday.
He said that GAESA was “Cuban military-controlled” and argued that it had “persistently served as the main vector for the regime elites to steal the island’s few resources, diverting them for repression, anti-American subversion and spying instead of schools, power plants, and basic necessities for the Cuban people.”
Rubio warned that anyone who is providing services to these sanctioned entities could be at risk of being sanctioned, too.
“Two of the entities designated today are GAESA-linked financial institutions associated with moving money on the regime’s behalf, and one is a GAESA-linked logistics company that executes the regime’s bidding across the island,” Rubio’s official State Department release explained. “I am also designating two additional entities generating revenue for Cuba through the exploitation of the island’s mineral and metal reserves, including Cuba’s state-owned GeoMinera.”
Finally, Rubio said he was designating the wife of Alejandro Castro Espín, a Cuban military and political power player.
President Trump’s Cabinet has remained postured to act in Cuba, although no official move beyond sanctions has happened at this point.
In early June, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth visited Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, telling U.S. troops that the Department of War was prepared for “any possible contingency” when it came to the situation in Cuba.
President Donald Trump also said this month that it was “possible” that Cuba could be next on the agenda, in the vein of the American military’s operation in Venezuela, per RSBN.
“These places are close by. Whereas if you look at Iran, that’s a very long trip,” President Trump told Axios. “Venezuela is relatively close and Cuba is a hopscotch.”
