Washington/Havana (EFE)— The United States ended its grace period Friday for foreign companies operating in Cuba, closing a window that had given businesses until June 5 to sever ties with the island or face penalties from Washington.
The deadline marks the latest turn in an escalating pressure campaign against Havana. A day earlier, the Treasury Department imposed new financial sanctions on Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, several of his family members, a son of former leader Raúl Castro, Cuba’s Ministry of the Armed Forces, and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR).
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on May 1 targeting foreign entities operating in Cuba’s energy, defense, mining, and financial services sectors. His administration set June 5 as the cutoff for those entities to unwind their involvement. Companies that remained in business with the Cuban government and its military conglomerate GAESA — already under U.S. sanctions — were warned that their U.S.-held assets could be blocked. The order also includes economic sanctions and U.S. entry bans for foreign nationals who have worked or continue to work for Cuban government entities, are implicated in human rights violations, or engaged in acts of corruption.
Cuban officials denounced the measures as “illegal and abusive.” The sanctions come on top of a U.S. crude oil embargo Trump imposed after the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and a criminal indictment against Raúl Castro related to the 1996 shootdown of Cuban-American exile aircraft.
A Corporate Exodus
The U.S. pressure has already triggered a significant pullback by international companies with decades of presence on the island.
Airlines were among the first to go. A combination of declining demand due to geopolitical uncertainty and jet fuel shortages at Cuban airports — a direct consequence of the petroleum embargo — prompted all four Canadian airlines and two Russian carriers serving Cuba to suspend routes earlier this year. Major carriers including Air France, Turkish Airlines, and Iberia followed.
Shortly after, the two largest shipping companies operating in Cuba — France’s CMA CGM and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd — announced they would stop accepting new bookings for shipments to or from the island.
The mining sector moved quickly as well. Canadian miner Sherritt International, the largest foreign investor on the island, immediately suspended its direct participation in nickel and cobalt extraction days after Trump signed the executive order.
As the deadline approached, the four largest foreign hotel operators in Cuba made their moves. Spanish chains Meliá and Iberostar stopped operating all properties owned by the Cuban military, while Canada’s Blue Diamond and Indonesia’s Archipelago ceased operations on the island entirely.
The final domino fell at an undisclosed bank — the only institution managing Visa and Mastercard payment platform operations in Cuba — which shut down what had been an essential channel for foreign currency flows into the country.
Ambiguity Leaves Door Open for Broader Action
While the order targets foreign entities operating in Cuba across energy, defense, finance, mining, and security — individually and through joint ventures with the Cuban government — analysts note that the order’s broad language could leave companies with no direct presence in Cuba exposed to sanctions if they have conducted business with the Cuban government.
Experts describe the measure’s primary purpose as deterrence: signaling to any company that has interacted with Havana that it risks being caught in Washington’s crosshairs.
The crackdown represents a sharp escalation between two long-standing adversaries. Following the brief diplomatic thaw between 2014 and 2017, the two countries have returned to open hostility, at least in public. Behind the scenes, Washington and Havana have maintained some level of diplomatic, military, and intelligence contact, though few details have emerged.
Trump has threatened to take control of the island “one way or another,” while also suggesting a willingness to negotiate with a Cuba that economists and observers describe as on the edge of collapse. Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged this week that the sweeping political changes the U.S. is demanding would require a change in leadership in Havana — a condition the Cuban government has flatly rejected, stating it will not negotiate its sovereignty.
