Related videos:
The Cuban activist Rosa María Payá endorsed the new U.S. sanctions against the military conglomerate GAESA on Tuesday with a strong denunciation on her social media.
GAESA is the dictatorship's vault. With that money, the military suppresses and enriches themselves while Cubans suffer from hunger and blackouts," wrote the activist, commissioner of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, on her X account.
The statement came hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a second round of sanctions against five Cuban entities linked to GAESA: Almacenes Universales S.A. (AUSA), RAFIN S.A., the International Financial Bank (BFI), GeoMinera S.A., and the José Martí Steel Company (Antillana de Acero).
Payá, founder of Cuba Decide and Pasos de Cambio, directly thanked Rubio for the measures: «People want freedom and they are in the streets demanding it. These sanctions hit dictators where it hurts the most».
Rubio described the conglomerate as "the main vehicle for the regime's elites to appropriate the scarce resources of the island" and warned that its funds finance repression and espionage instead of being allocated to schools, power plants, or basic needs.
The new measures, adopted under the Executive Order 14404 signed by Donald Trump on May 1, 2026, also for the first time included a family member from the Castro circle: Annalie Lilliam Rueda Cardero, identified by the Department of State as an adult relative of Alejandro Castro Espín, son of Raúl Castro and former head of intelligence services.
The BFI, one of the sanctioned entities, manages, according to Washington, the vast majority of transactions with foreign entities operating inside and outside of Cuba, which makes its designation a direct blow to the regime's external finances.
Rubio also issued a warning to foreign banks and companies that are connected to the sanctioned entities: "They must immediately freeze those activities," under the risk of secondary sanctions.
Payá's report points to a contradiction that the data make difficult to ignore: while Cubans endure blackouts of up to 72 hours and only 18.3% of the population receives drinking water daily, the regime allocated nearly 40% of its investments to tourism, compared to just 2.7% to health and social assistance in 2024.
GAESA —founded by Raúl Castro in the 1990s as the economic arm of the Armed Forces— operates without a website, public audits, and does not appear in the national budget, yet controls between 40% and 70% of the formal Cuban economy, with estimated assets of nearly 18 billion dollars.
Tuesday's sanctions add to more than 240 measures imposed by Washington against Cuba since January 2025, in a sustained pressure that has already accelerated the exit of international hotel chains: Iberostar ceased operations at 12 of its 18 hotels on the island as of June 1, and Meliá confirmed its total withdrawal.
Cuban tourism, the primary source of foreign currency for the regime, collapsed by 55.8% between January and April 2026 compared to the same period of the previous year, with only 328,608 international visitors.
Filed under: