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President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed this Thursday that they are moving forward with a maximum pressure strategy against the Cuban regime, with new sanctions that affect the military conglomerate GAESA, its CEO Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, and the mining company Moa Nickel S.A.
The measures block all assets and interests of the sanctioned entities under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibit any financial or commercial transactions with them, also extending the risk of secondary sanctions to foreign financial institutions that maintain links with the blocked entities.
"The Trump Administration is taking decisive steps to protect the national security of the United States and deprive the communist regime and the armed forces of Cuba of access to illicit assets," Rubio stated in the official announcement.
The statement from the Department of State describes GAESA as the core of Cuba's kleptocratic communist system, noting that it controls approximately 40% or more of the island's economy.
According to public estimates cited by the Department of State, GAESA's revenues likely triple the Cuban state budget, and the conglomerate could control up to 20 billion dollars in illicit assets abroad.
Rubio emphasized that "just 90 miles from U.S. territory, the Cuban regime has driven the island to ruin and has auctioned it off as a platform for foreign intelligence, military, and terrorist operations."
Lastres Morera, the woman behind GAESA, was sanctioned for being responsible for managing the conglomerate's illicit international assets.
Brigadier General of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, he assumed the executive presidency of GAESA following the death of Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja in July 2022.
Moa Nickel S.A., a joint venture between the Canadian company Sherritt International and the Cuban state-owned Compañía General del Níquel, was sanctioned for operating in the metals and mining sector.
The State Department accuses her of profiting from assets "originally expropriated by the Cuban regime from American citizens and corporations."
The impact was almost immediate: Sherritt's exit leaves the regime without its main mining partner, after the Canadian company announced the total suspension of its operations in Cuba and the repatriation of its expatriate staff. Its shares dropped by up to 30% on the stock market that same day.
Sherritt's exit would affect between 10% and 15% of Cuba's electricity generation capacity, worsening an energy crisis that is already experiencing blackouts of up to 25 hours a day.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) granted a grace period until June 5, 2026 for foreign individuals and entities to settle transactions with GAESA without the risk of secondary sanctions.
The sanctions announced this Thursday are part of a maximum pressure strategy that the Trump administration has intensified since January 2026. Since then, Trump signed the Executive Order that supports these measures and more than 240 sanctions against the regime have been accumulated, in addition to the interception of at least seven tankers, which has reduced the island's fuel imports by between 80% and 90%.
The military dimension of the pressure is also escalating: the State Department began to deploy personnel to Southern Command in Miami in anticipation of possible hostilities, and last Tuesday, Rubio presided over the 2026 Conference of Chiefs of Mission at the SOUTHCOM headquarters in Doral, where he was photographed alongside General Francis L. Donovan in front of a map of Cuba under the slogan "Peace through Strength!".
Rubio warned that "new sanctions are expected in the coming days and weeks," a sign that the maximum pressure campaign against Havana is far from over.
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