Rubio hits Cuba’s GAESA, nickel firm with sweeping sanctions

The first immediate crack showed up in nickel. Sherritt International Corp. said it suspended its direct participation in Cuba joint-venture activities effective immediately after Washington hit Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A., Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera and Moa Nickel SA with new sanctions.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the measures on May 7, 2026, under President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14404, signed on May 1. The State Department said GAESA is controlled by the Cuban military and operates in financial services, controls 40 percent or more of Cuba’s economy, likely holds up to $20 billion in illicit assets and generates revenues that are likely more than three times Cuba’s state budget. Lastres Morera, the department said, is GAESA’s executive president and manages its internationally held illicit assets.

That scale is why the move reaches far beyond the people named on the sanctions list. GAESA sits over a huge share of the island’s hard-currency machinery, and when Washington squeezes it, the pressure runs into the everyday places Cubans and visitors actually encounter: hotels, retail outlets, payment systems and the channels that move money in and out of the country. The State Department said more designations could follow in the coming days and weeks, a signal that this was meant as a broader campaign against the military-run business network, not a one-off designation.

The fine print matters too. The Office of Foreign Assets Control said GAESA had already been on the SDN List and the Cuba Restricted List since December 21, 2020. It also said some foreign persons and foreign financial institutions could have a limited wind-down period through June 5, 2026. U.S. persons, however, remain barred from dealing with GAESA unless authorized, which means the real effect may come from banks, suppliers and partners deciding they no longer want the risk.

Moa Nickel SA gives the story another layer. The joint venture links Sherritt with Cuba’s state-owned nickel company, La Compania General de Niquel, putting the sanctions directly into one of the island’s most important industrial relationships. Reuters also reported that the Trump administration has halted shipments of oil from Venezuela to Cuba, tightening pressure on fuel and foreign exchange at the same time.

Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, rejected the move as “collective punishment” and “unilateral coercive measures.” China called the expanded sanctions illegal and urged Washington to end its embargo and sanctions on the island. On the ground, though, the test is simpler: whether this hits the machinery Cubans use every day, or just adds another layer of symbolic pressure to a system already under strain.