HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) — Cuba on Tuesday denounced American “slander” against its military-backed conglomerate GAESA, which dominates the island’s economy and was the recent target of new United States (US) sanctions.

The fresh restrictions on GAESA were announced in early May as part of Washington’s mounting pressure campaign against the communist-led island, which US President Donald Trump has openly mused about taking over.

In announcing the sanctions, Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused GAESA, which is estimated to control 70 per cent of the Cuban economy, of enriching the elites at the expense of ordinary citizens.

“A ‘state within the state’ that is accountable to no one and hoards the profits from its businesses for the benefit of a small elite,” Rubio said.

Havana pushed back in a statement on Tuesday, arguing that the group “is neither an opaque structure nor a parallel one to the Cuban state”.

“On the contrary, it has been a coordinated response of proven efficiency to the economic siege that has historically sought to suffocate the Cuban Revolution,” it said, referring to the US embargo imposed on the island in 1962.

The latest wave of US sanctions doubled down on GAESA by freezing its assets in the United States and penalizing foreign companies that work with it.

Havana called the measures “the most intense, disproportionate, and dangerous escalation in the recent history of relations between Cuba and the United States”.

It said GAESA’s “countless” services included sustaining the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic and building more than 10,000 homes.

Its work “speaks for itself, and it does so above the state slander concocted in Washington”, the statement added.

Spanish hotel group Iberostar was withdrawing from a dozen Cuban facilities it managed in partnership with GAESA-linked companies, several sources told AFP on Tuesday.

The group had decided to “pull out of the hotels it managed with the tourism group Gaviota”, which is part of GAESA, according to one source.

“As of June 1, Iberostar is pulling out of all its hotels (run with) Gaviota,” another tourism industry source confirmed.

The Mallorca-based group, which declined to provide details when contacted by AFP, will continue to co-manage hotels owned by Cuba’s tourism ministry, the sources added.

Canadian mining firm Sherritt, following sanctions over its Cuba operations, also recently pulled the plug on its partnership with GAESA.