The U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, stated that all of Cuba's wealth is in the hands of a company controlled by military generals who "keep all the money," while the Cuban people "literally eat garbage from the streets." These remarks were made in an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News aboard Air Force One and were shared by the official account of the State Department on X.
"The wealth in Cuba is controlled by a company owned by military generals who take all the money. This is a country where people literally eat garbage from the streets, yet this company amasses 16 billion dollars. It is a broken and non-functional economy," Rubio stated.
The Secretary of State was referring to GAESA (Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.), the military conglomerate that controls the financial heart of the regime and that, according to Washington, monopolizes approximately 40% or more of the Cuban economy.
Rubio was even more emphatic in describing the structure of economic power on the island: “There is no economy in Cuba. To the extent that there is wealth, it does not go to the government. It is controlled by a company of military generals. They have billions of dollars. It is a broken economy, non-functional, and impossible to change.”
The State Department has described GAESA as the "core of Cuba's kleptocratic communist system" and accuses the conglomerate of holding up to $20 billion in illicit assets siphoned to hidden bank accounts abroad.
The statements come a week after Rubio announced direct sanctions against GAESA under Executive Order 14404, signed by President Trump on May 1.
At that moment, Rubio was equally explicit: “Not a single cent benefits the Cuban people. There is the Cuban government, which has a budget. And then there is this private company that has more money than the government itself.”
Along with GAESA, Brigadier General Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, the executive president of the conglomerate, and the mining company Moa Nickel S.A. were sanctioned. Foreign companies linked to GAESA were given until June 5 to cease operations, under the threat of secondary sanctions.
GAESA was created by Raúl Castro during the Special Period of the 1990s to provide the Revolutionary Armed Forces with an autonomous financial base, and it was formally founded on February 28, 1999. For decades, it was led by Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, son-in-law of Raúl Castro. The conglomerate operates with total opacity: it does not pay taxes on profits in dollars, does not allow state audits, and maintains companies registered in Panama, Cyprus, and Liberia.
The accumulated pressure from the Trump administration has reduced Cuba's energy imports by between 80% and 90%, worsening a crisis that already causes blackouts of up to 25 hours in more than half of the national territory.
Rubio had already made it clear that the pressure campaign is not over: "New sanctions are expected in the coming days and weeks."
Filed under: