The Guardian reported on September 17, 2026 that people close to Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are positioning to acquire Cuban assets that the administration's own sanctions campaign has pried loose.
The sequence is documented. On May 1, 2026 Trump signed an executive order imposing sanctions over repression in Cuba, published in the Federal Register on May 7. The order drove Canada's Sherritt International out of its nickel-and-cobalt joint venture with the Cuban state. Two rival American bids for Sherritt's stake then went to U.S. authorities. One comes from Ray Washburne, vice-chair of Trump's 2016 Victory Committee and organizer of the September 2026 Republican midterm convention in Dallas, through his family office Gillon Capital. The other comes from Texas oil investor Albert Huddleston, in a consortium that includes Glencore.
Bloomberg News, via Mining.com, independently reported the same contest and quoted Washburne on the record in Dallas. Asked about the outstanding property claims on the site, he said, “It's the mine I'm concerned about,” and confirmed he would buy out the claim. As one attorney put it, “These claims are a veto, not a nuisance.”
The Guardian documents several adjacent arrangements. Australia's Antilles Gold, blacklisted in June, received administration clearance to transfer its Cuban copper-gold mine stake to a New York fund. The lobbying firm Continental Strategy, staffed by Rubio-linked former officials including his former chief of staff, was hired in July by a Madrid company partnered with the Cuban military conglomerate GAESA, earning nearly $40,000 before terminating the contract. Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse secured a $40 million federal contract to distribute aid in Cuba; a spokesperson said “Details about aid for Cuba are still being developed and are not yet finalized.” Treasury-authorized oil exports from Florida and Texas to Cuba's private sector have passed $160 million this year.
A person with decades of experience in Cuba policy told the Guardian, on condition of anonymity, “If I had done during the Biden administration what Trump's friends have done now, I'd have been put in jail.” Another person familiar with the lobbying contract said, “It's been interesting to watch how quickly some hardline ideologues become pragmatists once there's money on the table.”
One element is weaker than the rest and is flagged as such. The Guardian's anonymous sources say Trump Organization executives returned to Cuba under the aegis of Dominari Holdings and met a grandson of Raúl Castro. That account rests on unnamed sources in a single outlet and is not independently confirmed. Without it, the beneficiaries here are Trump's allies and donors rather than Trump himself, and the Cuba pressure campaign is driven by Rubio; Trump's role runs through the executive order that created the opening.