MIAMI, United States — Vima World S.L., the parent company of the Spanish food distribution group that supplies Cuba’s dollar-denominated stores, hired lobbying firm Continental Strategy LLC to represent it before the U.S. government and Congress.
The registration took effect on July 24, 2026, 11 weeks after the State Department sanctioned the Cuban military conglomerate GAESA, and was signed and made public on August 7, one day after the same department designated two subsidiaries of the conglomerate.
The form identifies the company by its address on Núñez de Balboa Street in Madrid and describes it as a food distribution and logistics company specializing in supply, importation, and distribution. It lists three areas of lobbying activity—trade, the food industry, and foreign relations—and summarizes the engagement in a single line: seeking “project opportunities in Latin America.”
Cuba, the market from which nearly half of its revenue originates, is not mentioned anywhere in the document.
The form’s silence contrasts with what was happening in Washington during those weeks. GAESA was designated on May 7 under Executive Order 14404, which Donald Trump signed on May 1 and which authorizes the blocking of property belonging to foreign persons for “having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to” the Government of Cuba. On June 4, the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces was targeted, and on August 6 the State Department designated five additional entities and eight individuals, including Tecnoimport and Tecnotex, two GAESA subsidiaries engaged in imports.
That fact sheet spells out the measure’s practical implications for any foreign company. It states that all entities owned 50% or more, directly or indirectly, by one or more blocked persons are also blocked, and that foreign persons that conduct transactions with persons designated under Executive Order 14404, or that operate in the energy, defense, metals and mining, financial services, or security sectors of the Cuban economy, are “themselves exposed to sanctions.”
Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Juan Pablo Segura put it bluntly in a post on X in early August: “Foreign companies wishing to invest in Cuba must have a Cuban state-owned company as a partner, making them accomplices in the dictatorship’s corruption scheme. For this reason, the Trump administration has imposed secondary sanctions on all companies that maintain commercial relations with GAESA.”
In the same message, he described the conglomerate as “an extensive corrupt network that controls hotels, stores, real estate, transportation, finance, and other areas of the regime.”
Three lobbyists are registered on Vima’s account, and only one reports having previously held public office: Carlos Trujillo, listed on the form as a former U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS). According to his biography, Trujillo is the president and founder of Continental Strategy. He served for eight years as the state representative for District 105 in the Florida House of Representatives, chaired that chamber’s Appropriations Committee, and went on to serve as U.S. Permanent Representative to the OAS after being unanimously confirmed by the Senate. Trump subsequently nominated him to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs.
The second name on the registration is Eric Farnsworth, a partner who heads the firm’s international policy and trade practice after spending more than 20 years leading the Washington office of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, one of the most influential business forums in U.S.-Latin American relations. Before that, he served at the White House, the State Department, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The third, Francisco Petrirena, is a vice president at the consulting firm and comes from Miami municipal government, where he served as chief of staff to the city manager and as director of government relations; he reports no previous federal government position.
None of the three represents the firm’s most direct link to the administration. That connection comes through two partners who are not listed on Vima’s registration: Alberto Martínez, director of the Washington office and former chief of staff to Marco Rubio in the Senate, where he oversaw Rubio’s entire legislative and communications agenda before Rubio became secretary of state; and John Barsa, a partner who served as acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development following an appointment by Trump and, before that, was responsible for Latin America and the Caribbean at the agency, where, according to his own biography, he led “policies and initiatives to promote democracy in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.”
The consulting firm, which markets itself under the slogan “relentless advocacy, dynamic insight,” promises clients tailored, results-driven strategies that combine “deep government access” with an unwavering commitment to their success.
The registration does not list lobbying fees. The document’s only dollar figure appears in the section on foreign entities, where Vima World S.L. itself is listed as holding a 10% interest and making a $30,000 contribution toward lobbying activities. The income and expense fields are blank because those amounts are reported only in quarterly filings, and the report covering the July-to-September period is not yet due.
The company does more than sell in Cuba: it exports to the island from U.S. territory. Vima World operates two subsidiaries called Vima USA Ltd, one in New York and another in Miami, through which it ships U.S. agricultural products and food to Cuba, according to the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, the organization that identified the lobbying registration. Those sales are conducted under the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000, which authorized direct commercial exports of U.S. food and agricultural products to Cuba provided they are paid for in cash.
Vima is therefore not merely a Spanish company exposed to secondary sanctions; it is also an operator under U.S. jurisdiction.
On the island, the group entered the retail business in May 2024, when it reached an agreement with Tiendas Caribe to manage 20 stores, beginning with the Paseo market and the Infanta and Santa Marta market in Centro Habana. It later established a wholly foreign-owned subsidiary, Vima Caribe S.A., to centralize its Cuban operations, according to elTOQUE, which identifies Tiendas Caribe as a military-controlled entity.
The company’s 2024 accounts filed with Spain’s Mercantile Registry, examined by the same outlet, show net profits of €10 million, 16% more than the previous year, and indicate that at least €49 million of its €106 million in revenue came from Cuban operations. Nearly half of that revenue depends on a country where the brand’s products are sold only in foreign currency, in stores to which most Cubans do not have access.
Meanwhile, the company plans to expand. In a statement released in April and reported by Forbes, Vima Foods announced that it expects to end 2026 with revenue of €216 million—$250 million—and to double that figure to $500 million by 2030, with operations in more than 30 countries. “One of our crucial markets continues to be the Americas,” Víctor Moro, the group’s executive vice president, said in the statement.
The quarterly report that Continental Strategy must file in October will specify how much it is being paid for the account and which U.S. government agencies it lobbied.
