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The newspaper Granma, the official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba, published an extensive article this Tuesday defending the Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA), calling the U.S. sanctions against the military conglomerate a “state slander” concocted from Washington and listing social projects to justify its existence.
The publication responds to the sanctions announced on May 7 by Secretary of State Marco Rubio under Executive Order 14404, signed by President Donald Trump on May 1, which accuses GAESA of controlling approximately 40% of the Cuban economy and of managing revenues that "likely triple the state budget."
The Granma text describes the measures as "the most intense, disproportionate, and dangerous escalation in the recent history of relations between Cuba and the United States" and frames them as part of a "roadmap designed by ideologues of the Cuban-American far right."
The Lies of Granma about GAESA
As a central argument, the regime lists works that it attributes to the conglomerate: the construction of more than 10,000 homes in various provinces.
However, in May, the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) of Cuba published the official construction data for 2025, and the figures confirm the collapse of the sector. Only 5,493 homes were completed nationwide.
The other works that were supposedly budgeted by GAESA, but whose investments cannot be demonstrated with publicly available data, are:
- Inversiones en la termoeléctrica Lidio Ramón Pérez in Holguín
- Hydraulic works such as the East-West and North-South water transfers
- Repairs to polyclinics, doctors' houses, and schools.
Granma states that "the GAE is neither an opaque structure nor parallel to the Cuban State" and that "it is not the work of secrecy, nor of elites, and much less the means for the enrichment of a few."
The article concludes with a quote attributed to Raúl Castro, who described the work of the conglomerate as carried out "without the slightest desire for protagonism, as serious things are done."
The Washington version of GAESA is radically opposed
The State Department described GAESA as "the core of Cuba's kleptocratic communist system," designed "to generate income not for the Cuban people, but solely for the benefit of its corrupt elites."
Together with GAESA, Washington sanctioned Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, the executive president of the conglomerate and a brigadier general of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, accused of managing illicit assets outside of Cuba.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) set June 5 as the deadline for foreign companies to close operations with GAESA before facing secondary sanctions.
The impact of the measures has been immediate. Large shipping companies like CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd suspended operations in Cuba, Spanish hotel chains such as Meliá and Iberostar came under pressure to restructure their ties with the tourism sector controlled by the conglomerate, and Canadian hotelier Blue Diamond announced its withdrawal this past Sunday.
Since January 2026, the U.S. has imposed more than 240 sanctions against Cuba and has intercepted at least seven oil tankers, reducing Cuban energy imports by between 80% and 90%, while the Cuban people endure prolonged blackouts and widespread shortages.
Rubio warned on May 7 that "new sanctions are expected in the coming days and weeks," with the OFAC deadline expiring this Friday.
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