Overview
- The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control expanded sanctions on June 4 to list President Miguel Díaz-Canel, his wife and several Castro family members along with five Cuban institutions, freezing any assets in U.S. jurisdiction and barring U.S. persons from transacting with them.
- Cuba’s central bank said a foreign processor notified it on June 2 that it had broken ties with Fincimex, the GAESA-linked firm that handled international Visa and Mastercard transactions, forcing Havana to announce that card payments would stop from June 6.
- Major private operators have scaled back or left the island, with hotel groups (including Meliá, Iberostar and Blue Diamond), shipping lines and a miner suspending operations or management of properties to avoid exposure to U.S. secondary penalties.
- China and Russia publicly condemned the U.S. moves and have offered political backing to Havana, with Moscow acknowledging contacts with Washington over possible operations and reporting prior fuel deliveries to the island.
- The combined legal and financial squeeze targets GAESA’s revenue sources and risks worsening daily life in Cuba by cutting tourist income, remittance-linked spending and fuel imports, which could further disrupt electricity, transport and food supplies for ordinary Cubans.