The United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, appeared this Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to defend the State Department's budget for fiscal year 2027, and took the opportunity during the hearing to make his most detailed and public statement to date regarding the economic structure of the Cuban regime, with GAESA as the central focus.
Rubio dismantled before the senators the official narrative that Cuba is governed by a civilian executive.
"I believe there is a misconception or misunderstanding about Cuba," he stated.
“Cuba is actually not controlled by the government. Cuba is controlled by a military holding company called GAESA, and GAESA owns practically everything in the country,” he added.
The Secretary of State outlined the scope of the conglomerate:
“Controls the tourism sector, controls mining, controls gas stations; it owns everything. Approximately 70% of Cuba's GDP is under the control of this military company. And they have between 14 billion and 17 billion dollars in assets,” he clarified.
The most striking accusation pointed to the complete disconnection between the accumulated wealth and the well-being of the population:
"Meanwhile, there are people literally starving. There are people literally suffering the consequences of an electrical grid that hasn't been maintained in ten years. However, this military holding company is sitting on all those assets. And, by the way, not a cent of that military company's money is transferred to the public treasury."
A system unable to reform itself
Rubio described Cuba as a failed state that poses a direct threat to the United States and was emphatic about the prospects for change:
"The fundamental challenge we face is that Cuba needs systemic and serious reforms. It needs economic reforms. And the question is whether it can truly reform under the current leadership, both of GAESA and the government. I really don't believe this system is capable of reforming itself unless new people take control."
During the same hearing, Rubio also stated that Cuba has sponsored terrorism and supported armed groups such as the ELN and the FARC, and that the island hosts "a rather substantial collection of intelligence sites on behalf of China and Russia."
The context: Sanctions and business exodus
Rubio's words come at a time of heightened pressure on GAESA since President Trump signed the Executive Order 14404 on May 1, which introduced secondary sanctions against any foreign company or financial institution that operated with the conglomerate.
On May 7, Rubio formalized the designations against GAESA, its executive president Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera -brigadier general of the Revolutionary Armed Forces- and Moa Nickel S.A.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) set June 5 as the deadline for foreign companies to close their operations with the conglomerate, which triggered a mass exodus: Iberostar ceased management of 12 hotels on June 1, and Blue Diamond Resorts announced the complete cessation of operations in 62 hotels and over 12,900 rooms on May 31.
The regime's response and the interruption in the Senate
On the same day as the hearing, the Cuban regime published in Granma its first direct response regarding GAESA in over a month, describing the sanctions as "the most intense, disproportionate, and dangerous escalation in the recent history of relations between Cuba and the United States."
The statement, however, did not address any of the specific allegations regarding assets or the lack of transfers to the treasury, and it did not mention the June 5 deadline or the exodus of foreign business partners.
The session was also marked by the interruption of pro-regime activists who interrupted Rubio with shouts of "Stop killing Cubans; repent!", in an attempt to destabilize the appearance, which did not manage to alter the course of the hearing.
The deadline set by OFAC expires this Friday, June 5, a date that will determine whether foreign companies still linked to GAESA comply with the sanctions or risk retaliation from Washington.
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