The U.S. just hit Cuba's biggest mining deal. The country taking the worst pain isn't Cuba. It's China.
Marco Rubio, the U.S. Secretary of State, hit Moa Nickel SA. It's a joint deal between Canada's Sherritt and Cuba's state nickel firm. The same nickel and cobalt mines feed China's battery makers.
The block stems from Executive Order 14404, which President Trump signed on May 1. It lets the U.S. shut out foreign firms that work in Cuba's mining, energy, banking, and defense fields.
Within a week, Sherritt stopped all its work in Cuba and began moving its foreign staff off the island.
Sherritt's chair Brian Imrie and two other board members quit the same day. The stock fell about 30% on the news.
The block also hit GAESA, the Cuban army firm that runs about 40% of the island's economy. Its chief, Ania Lastres, was named too.
The Moa zone in eastern Cuba holds rich nickel and cobalt. Both are key to the global EV (electric vehicle) battery trade.
Chinese firms run mining and refining work tied to those mines. They then ship the half-done metal into the world's biggest battery supply chain.
Cutting off Moa does not end Chinese battery output. It does take out a cheap source of metal at a time when China is now paying top prices for nickel and cobalt elsewhere.
For Beijing, the move adds fresh stress to a battery supply chain that's now stretched. China gets most of its nickel and cobalt from a small group of mines. Each one that gets cut hurts more than the last.
Cuba was in crisis well before this. Energy imports fell 80% to 90% in the past year, and blackouts have been wide.
Sherritt also owns a one-third stake in Energas, which makes between 10% and 15% of Cuba's power. That output is now in doubt, too.
"With Sherritt suspending operations, the U.S. has now effectively targeted all of Cuba's main sources of hard currency," said Paolo Spadoni, a Cuban economy expert at Augusta University.
Sherritt had been Cuba's largest foreign investor for 35 years. The bond goes back to a 1991 deal Ian Delaney first cut with Fidel Castro.
Cuba is now down its top mining partner, a chunk of its power supply, and a key source of foreign cash. The island has very few backstops left.
Sherritt's exit closes that 35-year story in one week. The bigger move is what it signals.
Key metals are now part of the U.S.-China fight. The Trump team is willing to use Cuba as a chess piece to play it.
For investors in EV makers, battery firms, and the metals trade, the read is clear. The price of nickel and cobalt now bakes in a fresh layer of risk.
Watch the next round of moves out of Beijing. China has now locked up nickel ore in Indonesia and cobalt in the Congo. The Moa cutoff just gives it one more reason to keep doing so.
