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The Mariel Container Terminal S.A. (TC Mariel), an entity associated with the Business Management Group S.A. (GAESA), notified its clients on June 25 about the sale of its assets to Coral Marítima S.A., a new Cuban trading company that will establish the subsidiary Port Terminals CORAL S.A. to take over port operations, reported this Saturday by the news agency AFP.
The operation would be supported by an official letter signed by Yamile Barrios San Martín, commercial director of TC Mariel, just two days after Washington imposed sanctions on Almacenes Universales S.A. (AUSA), the subsidiary of the Cuban military elite conglomerate that controlled container traffic in the Special Development Zone of Mariel, located about 45 kilometers west of Havana, in the province of Artemisa.
"We are contacting you to inform you that the company Terminal de Contenedores Mariel S.A. has sold its assets to the Cuban commercial entity Coral Marítima S.A., which has established the subsidiary Terminales Portuarias CORAL S.A. to take over the business previously conducted by TC Mariel," states the document dated June 25 in Artemisa, which has begun to circulate on social media.
Analysts and opponents interpret the transaction as a maneuver to evade sanctions through formal restructuring: it changes the name of the operating entity, but real control of the business remains in the same circles of power.
The movement occurs in a context of maximum pressure from the United States government on the economic heart of the regime. On June 23, the same round of sanctions that impacted AUSA also included the Banco Financiero Internacional (BFI), RAFIN S.A., GeoMinera S.A., and the José Martí Steel Company.
The Secretary of State Marco Rubio was emphatic after announcing those measures: "Foreign banks and other companies that provide services to these entities must immediately freeze those activities."
The global warning from Rubio regarding doing business with GAESA directly targets secondary sanctions, which has led hotel chains such as Meliá, Iberostar, Blue Diamond, and Aston Hotels to reduce or cancel operations in Cuba over the past few months.
The behavior pattern exhibited by TC Mariel has a direct precedent; when the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Fincimex, a GAESA company linked to remittances, the regime created Orbit S.A. in less than 24 hours, physically located next to the sanctioned entity.
The economist Miguel Alejandro Hayes, who warned about the risks of dismantling GAESA without dismantling the regime, documented that pattern accurately.
"The Cuban regime could formally dissolve GAESA as an economic and repressive institution tomorrow, while at the same time creating another entity that serves exactly the same function," Hayes warned.
AFP reported that GAESA has begun a broader process of divesting several of its companies, in what analysts describe as a systematic strategy to evade sanctions through formal restructurings that do not change actual control.
GAESA, which controls between 40% and 70% of the Cuban economy and manages sectors such as tourism, commerce, ports, and telecommunications, was directly sanctioned on May 7, 2026, under Executive Order 14404 signed by President Donald Trump, along with its Executive President, Brigadier General Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera.
While TC Mariel completes the transition and prepares new contracts under the name Coral Marítima S.A., the Cuban people continue to endure blackouts, shortages, and repression, with no change in corporate branding altering the reality for those who control the island.
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