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Washington takes the pressure to Panama

1 min read

10:34UTC

The US Ambassador to Panama warned Panamanian banks and firms on 13 July over Cuban sanctions evasion, naming Fincimex and BFI as examples of the risk.

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Key takeaway

Washington took its Cuba sanctions warning directly to Panama's banks and their compliance desks.

Kevin Marino Cabrera, the US Ambassador to Panama, and State Deputy Assistant Secretary Samuel Parker warned Panamanian banks and firms on Monday 13 July about the sanctions risk of facilitating Cuban evasion, citing Fincimex, Cuba's remittance processor, and Banco Financiero Internacional (BFI) as examples ¹.

Panama's banking sector and the Colón Free Zone have long provided a re-export and settlement channel for Cuban trade that cannot clear through US-linked correspondent banks. OFAC had designated the bank itself on 23 June . Naming it again to a room of Panamanian bankers does something the designation alone cannot: it puts the compliance officers of institutions outside US jurisdiction on notice that the relationship now carries a documented risk. Banks de-risk on the strength of that notice long before any enforcement action, which is how a designation propagates into markets Washington cannot reach directly.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Kevin Marino Cabrera, the US ambassador to Panama, and Samuel Parker, a State Department deputy assistant secretary, met Panamanian banks and firms on 13 July to warn them against "sanctions evasion" tied to Cuba. This is not a new sanction; it is a warning to third-country banks that doing business with entities already on the US sanctions list carries risk even if the bank itself is Panamanian, not American. The entities they cited as examples, Fincimex, Cubita coffee, BFI and RAFIN, were all sanctioned months or years earlier. The meeting's purpose was to make sure Panama's financial sector understood the exposure, not to announce anything new.

What could happen next?

Consequence
Panamanian banks and firms doing any business with the named entities now have direct, explicit US notice of sanctions-evasion risk, raising the likelihood of de-risking (banks simply refusing Cuba-linked business to avoid exposure).

Sources:CiberCuba

Mentions:Fincimex →Banco Financiero Internacional →Cuba →Washington →OFAC →Panama →

First Reported In

Update #11 · Cuba blames the blockade for a 64% gas rise

CiberCuba· 17 Jul 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

OCDH logs 1,949 acts of repression

The priest travel ban and pastor detentions extend the repression pattern OCDH's 7 July six-month tally of 1,949 actions already documented.

Occurred 7 Jul 2026

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This Event

Washington takes the pressure to Panama

Warning third-country bankers face to face is how a US designation reaches institutions that US jurisdiction cannot bind.

Different Perspectives

OCDH (Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos), Madrid

OCDH itemised its previously reported first-half tally of 1,949 repressive actions into named categories, including 91 cases against independent journalists and 50 retaliations against prisoners' relatives. The monitor documents state conduct without endorsing sanctions as the remedy, a distinct position from Washington's designation campaign.

US State Department and OFAC

Four Federal Register notices on 31 July confirmed GAESA's own SDN designation dates to 7 May, closing a gap left by coverage that described only GAESA-controlled assets as sanctioned; Rubio separately called US sympathy for Cuba anti-Americanism. Whether the lagged gazetting reflects deliberate sequencing or administrative backlog is not established.

Unión Eléctrica (UNE), Cuba's state grid operator

UNE's load-dispatch director blamed the 2 August total collapse on a 110kV Havana substation fault and a Felton trip, not the storm damage CNN and AP cited, and a day later Decreto 160 took force, de-listing 46 private-sector activities. Havana's own record was more specific, and more severe, than the wire account.

Spain (Foreign Ministry and hotel investors)

Madrid has worked to shield Spanish hotel operators exposed to Cuba, and OFAC's General Licences 2 and 3 winding down the Guernsey-listed CEIBA Investments fund give those investors a defined exit rather than an abrupt block. Spain's stake in managing an orderly wind-down, not confronting the designation itself, keeps it distinct from Havana's collective-punishment framing.

Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX)

Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla called the 23 July designations "castigo colectivo" and defended the medical missions as protecting healthcare access for patients in the countries where Cuban doctors serve, without addressing the evasion allegation against Coral Maritima directly.

US Treasury (OFAC) and State Department

OFAC designated Cuba's medical-missions operators and named the Mariel-Coral Maritima transfer as GAESA sanctions evasion on 23 July, characterisations Washington has not independently substantiated in public documents reviewed. The administration frames the wave as closing hard-currency channels sector by sector, following the same pattern applied to tourism and financial clearing in June and July.