A new report warns that U.S. sanctions are speeding up GAESA's economic isolation

The latest sanctions from the U.S. Department of the Treasury against the military conglomerate GAESA are causing a profound shift in the Cuban economic landscape, according to a new report prepared by the research center Cuba Siglo XXI.

The dossier states that Washington has significantly expanded the scope of its pressure strategy. The measures are no longer limited to sanctioning companies controlled by GAESA, but also target investors, investment funds, and foreign partners involved in the management, protection, or transfer of assets linked to the conglomerate.

According to the analysis, this policy aims to close the avenues that allowed GAESA to operate through shell companies or international intermediaries, making it harder to access foreign capital and increasing the risk for any company that does business with the business group controlled by the Cuban Armed Forces.

The report identifies tourism as the sector where the effects are most visible. The combination of the collapse in visitor arrivals, low hotel occupancy, and the withdrawal of major international chains reflects, according to the document, the deterioration of a model that for decades constituted one of the main sources of foreign currency for the Cuban state.

One of the cases analyzed is that of CEIBA Investments Limited, a company that, according to the dossier, is said to have received real estate assets linked to GAESA before also being included on the list of U.S. sanctions. The study suggests that this episode sends a warning message to any investor intending to act as an intermediary to protect assets of the conglomerate.

The analysis also suggests that the new sanctions coincide with an internal economic crisis characterized by power outages, shortages of food, fuel, and medicines, as well as the deterioration of public services—factors that have already been diminishing Cuba's appeal for tourism and investment.

In its forward-looking section, Cuba Siglo XXI suggests that, in a potential scenario of democratic transition, the assets currently controlled by GAESA could serve as a foundation for the country's economic reconstruction through the influx of new international investments and the recovery of the tourism sector.

The report concludes that the combination of international sanctions and structural crisis is weakening the financial capacity of the military conglomerate and altering the economic environment in which it has operated for the past few decades.