Caribbean & Central America - May 2026

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order (EO) on 1 May extending economic sanctions against Cuba. It covers activity in energy, defence, mining, financial services, and security. This was followed on 7 May by a first list of individuals and companies in those sectors that are being specifically targeted.

A significant departure in the new regulations is that foreign companies and individuals who trade with Cuba in these are now themselves at risk of attracting US sanctions. Among the domestic entities initially singled out under the US regulations are Grupo de Administración Empresarial SA (Gaesa), the state-owned military conglomerate, which controls much of Cuba’s economy, which reportedly represents 40% of GDP, and Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, one of its directors. Announcing the measures US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the company represented “the heart of Cuba’s kleptocratic communist system”. Another group on the US sanctions list is Moa Nickel (MNSA), a mining joint venture between Cuba and Canadian company Sherritt International.

Lee Schlenker, a research associate at the US think tank Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, was cited by the Associated Press in an 8 May report as saying that foreign companies operating in the island now face the risk that their US assets may be frozen, as well as those of their shareholders, investors, or employees. “This is bound to have an extremely significant impact on the presence of foreign companies in Cuba,” he says.  

On 7 May, Sherritt, which has headquarters in Toronto, said it had taken the decision to halt participation in joint venture activities in Cuba because of the US sanctions announcement. It has operated in Cuba since 1991 and is regarded as one of the main foreign investors in the country with interests in nickel and cobalt mining, and in power generation.

Cuba’s response

The Havana administration reacted angrily to the latest round of sanctions applied by the US, with Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, decrying them as “unilateral”, “coercive”, and “collective punishment”.