The Cuban regime has launched an unprecedented media campaign to enhance the image of GAESA (Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.), the business conglomerate of the Armed Forces, amid the sanctions imposed by the United States.
The most recent step was a report aired by Canal Caribe on Wednesday, which showed "entrepreneurs from the GAE" meeting with agricultural producers from Mayabeque to promote joint ventures under the framework of Decree-Law 114.
This type of coverage is entirely new. Until now, GAESA had been a mystery to Cubans. The conglomerate operated without public transparency, without audits, without published financial statements, and the official media had never shown it interacting with domestic producers or explaining its role in the internal economy.
The most prominent official in the report was Juan Sera, commercial vice president of CIMEX, a subsidiary of GAESA.
Regarding funding, Sera stated: "Everything we manage to finance for the network in USD will also have a counterpart in CUP that will gradually provide options for purchases in the national currency. We organize these types of events frequently. We held another one recently in Artemisa. Step by step, we will take the necessary actions."
Maury Hechavarría, Deputy Minister of Agriculture, stated that the productive chain model "guarantees a market and reorganizes financing flows to acquire inputs." He assured that these efforts are aimed at meeting the needs of agricultural producers, and openly acknowledged, "We had never done that before."
One of the most striking elements of this campaign is the name change of GAESA. Official media have started referring to the conglomerate as "GAE," removing the "S.A." — that is, its status as a public limited company — without any documented legal modification to support this change.
Analysts interpret this as a rhetorical maneuver to distance the group from its negative international image following the United States sanctions against the Cuban military conglomerate.
The campaign was triggered directly by U.S. pressure. On May 1, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14404, which identified GAESA as a central target of sanctions.
On May 7, Secretary of State Marco Rubio formally imposed direct sanctions against the conglomerate. The deadline for foreign companies to sever ties with GAESA expired on June 5, after which the group was blocked by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
It was precisely on June 2 when the regime broke its historic silence on GAESA for the first time through a report in Granma, defending the conglomerate but without publishing any figures or audits.
Days later, GAESA started to showcase housing projects with equally scant data on national television, and they are now displaying their collaboration with farmers to sell food in dollars to the public, with the same promise as always: "This will enable access to more products in national currency in the future."
The legal framework that the regime uses to present GAESA/GAE as a promoter of national production is Decree-Law 114, published in the Official Gazette on March 3, 2026, and in effect since April.
The regulation allows for the first time the creation of mixed limited liability companies between state and non-state entities. Prior to this law, the relationships between both sectors were limited to sales or service contracts.
What the report omits is as revealing as what it presents. GAESA controls approximately 40% of the Cuban economy, including tourism, retail in foreign currency, remittances, logistics, customs, and ports.
Independent investigations estimate their assets at least at 17.9 billion dollars, with over 14.467 billion deposited in banks, although they have never published audits or public financial statements.
The conglomerate was created in the 1990s as a mechanism for the Armed Forces to generate foreign currency. Economist Elías Amor attributes its creation to a project promoted by Marino Murillo, who years later led the Tarea Ordenamiento, another economic reform that exacerbated the crisis and caused a significant loss of purchasing power among Cubans.
GAESA can do all the reports it wants on national television, but that does not change its nature: it is a military joint-stock company, and the regime prefers that Cubans do not recognize it as such.
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