International companies are pulling out of Cuba in rapid succession after a Trump administration executive order exposed foreign firms doing business with the island's military-run conglomerate to U.S. secondary sanctions, with credit card processors, hotel chains, and a longtime Canadian mining partner all retreating in recent weeks.

The trigger is Executive Order 14404, which President Donald Trump signed May 1.

The order authorizes sanctions on foreign companies operating in key sectors of the Cuban economy tied to Grupo de Administracion Empresarial S.A., the military-controlled holding company known as GAESA.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called GAESA "the heart of Cuba's kleptocratic communist system," according to The Wall Street Journal.

It also exposes foreign banks that process significant transactions with sanctioned parties to secondary sanctions, a sharper tool than the longstanding U.S. embargo, which mostly restricted Americans.

The State Department says GAESA controls 40% or more of Cuba's economy.

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control set a June 5 wind-down window before secondary sanctions exposure took effect. The deadline drove the exits.

Cuba's central bank announced June 3 that Visa and Mastercard transactions on the island would be suspended starting June 6, after a foreign bank that processes payments for Financiera Cimex S.A., a GAESA-owned remittance company, ended its relationship with the Cuban entity.

Americans were already barred from using the cards in Cuba.

Spanish hotel chains Melia and Iberostar said they would stop managing roughly a dozen Cuban hotels each, citing the regulatory environment and collapsing tourist demand.

Canadian operator Royalton has ceased operations.

Sherritt International, the Toronto-based miner that for more than three decades has run the Moa nickel-and-cobalt project in eastern Cuba through a joint venture with the state, suspended operations and repatriated staff after the May 1 order; the State Department formally designated the Moa Nickel S.A. joint venture on May 7.

The company said the executive order's "mere issuance" had materially altered its ability to operate.

Sherritt briefly moved to dissolve its Cuban joint ventures, then reversed course and on May 20 announced a nonbinding agreement to sell a 55% controlling stake to Gillon Capital LLC, the Texas-based family office of Ray Washburne, a Republican fundraiser who served as president of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation during Trump's first term.

The State and Treasury departments told Sherritt they do not object to the talks, though any final deal would require their approval. Sherritt shares have fallen more than 50% amid the turmoil, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The corporate retreat is unfolding alongside an aggressive enforcement push.

On May 20, the Justice Department unsealed a superseding indictment charging Raul Modesto Castro Ruz, 94, and five co-defendants with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, two counts of destruction of aircraft, and four counts of murder over the 1996 shootdown of two Brothers to the Rescue civilian planes that killed four people.

As of June 7, 2026, the practical effect is a foreign investment vacuum on an island already reeling from fuel shortages, hourslong blackouts, and an informal-market peso trading near 620 to the dollar.