Tag: cuba

Hegseth warns Cuba: Acquiring drones from Russia and Iran invites U.S. confrontation

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth issued a stark warning to Cuba, stating that any attempt by Havana to acquire advanced weaponry capable of striking the U.S. or its assets would invite a direct military confrontation.

Hegseth delivered the firm message to American service members during a visit to Naval Station Guantanamo Bay on Wednesday, amid rising regional tensions.

The Pentagon chief integrated his security briefing with the troops by participating in a morning physical fitness session, meeting with stationed personnel, and hosting a traditional coin recognition ceremony to honor outstanding performance.

“It would be unwise of the government of Cuba to try to procure or get access to the types of weapons that could reach this base or the American homeland. They would be inviting the kind of confrontation not only do they not want but ​they could not stand. No country on Earth can match the capabilities of the United States of America,” he emphasized at the base.

According to intelligence leaks, Cuba has acquired more than 300 military drones from Russia and Iran since 2023 and recently discussed contingency plans to use them against the Guantanamo base, U.S. naval vessels and targets in Florida.

Washington has also warned of potential military action as U.S. warships continue to operate in the Caribbean Sea.

Meanwhile, the visit unfolds amid an intensifying U.S. energy and oil blockade against the island, which has further crippled Cuba’s power grid. President Donald Trump has repeatedly hinted that Havana could be the next government to fall under intense American pressure, following the recent collapse of the Venezuelan regime.

After the news hit headlines, Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez fiercely denied the intelligence reports, accusing the U.S. of fabricating a baseline pretext to plot its next conflict.

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Hegseth Threatens: Cuba Seeking Weapons Invites Confrontation

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth traveled to the US military base at Guantanamo Bay and threatened to attack the Cuban government if it acquired weapons that could strike the American military facility or homeland. 

“It would be unwise of the government of Cuba to try to procure or get access to the types of weapons that could reach this base or the American homeland,” Hegseth said on Wednesday. “They would be inviting the kind of confrontation not only do they not want but they could not stand. No country on Earth can match the capabilities of the United States of America.”

The War Secretary’s threat follows a report from Axios last month in which a US official claimed that Havana was attempting to secure weapons that could hit the US. A senior US official speaking with the outlet said that signals intelligence found that Cuba reached out to Russia for additional attack drones and is seeking to replicate Iran’s military strategy. Axios notes that the intelligence leak “could become a pretext for US military action.”

President Donald Trump has eyed regime change in Cuba since returning to office. Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio is a long-time advocate of replacing the government in Havana with one chosen by Washington. 

Trump has attempted to cause economic collapse in Cuba by strengthening sanctions and cutting energy sales to Havana. While the policy has caused more suffering in Cuba, there have been no mass protests against the government. 

Recently, Washington announced that former Cuban leader Raúl Castro had been indicted on murder charges. The White House previously used the indictment against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to justify attacking the country and kidnapping the leader. 

Hegseth told US forces at Guantanamo Bay, “No matter what, the Department of War is going to be prepared and postured for any possible contingency.” 

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US Treasury Sanctions GAESA: The Cuban Military Conglomerate That Controls the Economy and Thrives on Donations

Secretary of State Marco Rubio described Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA) as a “Cuban military-controlled financial conglomerate that steals millions in aid for the Cuban people at the behest of the regime.” The United States sanctioned GAESA on May 7, 2026, under Executive Order 14404, signed by President Trump on May 1. The State Department issued the designations while the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) administered them.

Founded by Raúl Castro, GAESA is the economic arm of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and one of the country’s most powerful institutions. Despite existing within a nominally socialist state, it operates under an opaque structure resembling a capitalist corporation, with subsidiaries incorporated in Panama, Cyprus, and Liberia to bypass U.S. sanctions restrictions.

It controls an estimated 40 percent or more of the island’s economy, with gross profits representing close to 37 percent of Cuba’s GDP, total revenues 3.2 times greater than the annual Cuban state budget, and exports accounting for roughly 34 percent of the island’s total. The Food Monitor Program, in a formal complaint to the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, described GAESA as “a state within a state,” accusing it of worsening hunger and malnutrition through monopolistic control and financial opacity.

GAESA dominates Cuba’s most strategic and profitable sectors through a web of subsidiaries: tourism through Gaviota, retail and wholesale trade through CIMEX and TRD Caribe, and finance through RAFIN S.A. and Banco Financiero Internacional. It also controls remittances, logistics, port operations, including the Port of Mariel, construction, transportation, and foreign trade.

Its former chief, Gen. Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, the former son-in-law of Raúl Castro, was separately sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury, which froze his U.S.-jurisdiction assets and prohibited American persons from dealing with him.

Leaked internal accounting documents reported by the Miami Herald showed GAESA held approximately $18 billion in current assets as of March 2024, of which $14.5 billion sat in undisclosed overseas bank accounts, even as Cuba’s broader economy collapsed. The U.S. State Department stated in its May 2026 sanctions announcement that GAESA controls up to $20 billion in illicit assets funneled into hidden overseas accounts, and that GAESA’s executive president Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera is personally responsible for managing those assets internationally.

Those funds exist entirely outside the Cuban government’s budget. In 2024, Cuba’s State Comptroller was dismissed after 14 years in office. The dismissal came after she publicly admitted that she lacked access to GAESA’s financial accounts. The conglomerate is entirely exempt from government audit. “There’s the Cuban government and they have a budget,” Rubio told reporters, “and then there’s this private company that has more money than the government does.

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Pentagon puts building blocks in place for Cuba invasion

The Pentagon has spent months positioning the troops and weapons needed for the U.S. to launch a military attack on Cuba — all it needs is a final go-ahead from Donald Trump.

The president has floated an invasion of the island after economic and political pressure failed to topple the Communist government. But the Navy’s built-up presence in the region — the largest in the world outside the Middle East — would allow the U.S. to act immediately.

These strategically placed assets set the table for military action, from a capture of Havana’s leadership much like the seizure of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, to a series of precision strikes. And they open the possibility that the U.S. throws itself into the third international conflict of the Trump administration.

Cuba is “in a lot of trouble,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday at a full Cabinet meeting. “Having a failed state 90 miles from our shores is a threat to the national security of the United States.”

The armada in the region is slightly smaller than it was in January when the U.S. captured Maduro. But the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group entered the Caribbean in May, along with several guided missile destroyers and cruisers that can launch precision missiles at targets onshore. An array of advanced American drones and surveillance aircraft have also circled Cuba for months, according to flight tracking sites. The USS Kearsarge amphibious ships and escorts, which carry 2,500 Marines, are off the coast of Virginia preparing for a new deployment, and could replace some ships heading home.

The surge provides a variety of military options, although the Pentagon would need additional troops for a massive ground invasion.

The Nimitz arrived in the region on the same day as the U.S. indicted former president Raul Castro, in what appeared a public show of force. “The Nimitz is likely there primarily for intimidation, though it could be used in a military operation if needed,” said Mark Cancian, a former Pentagon official and now a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The ship, along with fighter planes based in Florida and Puerto Rico, would probably play a role in any military action in Cuba, he said. “Air strikes are possible to take out their air defenses to allow broader air operations or, perhaps, destroy their leadership with the idea of establishing a relationship as we have with Venezuela. Raul Castro would be their first target.”

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ICE Arrests Daughter of Cuban Communist Regime ‘Old Guard’ General

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently arrested Alina Rosales Aguirreurreta, daughter of General Ulises Rosales del Toro, a longtime key figure of the communist Castro regime.

ICE sources confirmed to Martí Noticias on Tuesday that Rosales Aguirreurreta, who is a doctor according to past statements from her family, was arrested in Florida. Her 84-year-old father, General Rosales del Toro, is widely described as part of the Cuban regime’s “old guard.” While keeping a relatively low profile from the public, the Cuban general has reportedly exerted significant political and military power in Cuba throughout the years thanks to his deep ties with both late dictator Fidel Castro and his brother and successor, Raúl Castro.

Rosales del Toro has occupied several high-ranking positions in the Cuban regime and the Cuban Communist Party over the past decades — including, but not limited to, vice president of the council of ministers, agriculture minister, and chief of the general staff of the revolutionary armed forces (FAR) in addition to holding the honorary title of “Hero of the Republic of Cuba.”

Martí Noticias first reported Alina Rosales Aguirreurreta’s presence in United States territory in February. According to testimonies given by her relatives, Rosales Aguirreurreta is reportedly believed to have entered the United States in 2023 during the administration of former President Joe Biden with a U.S. B-1/B-2 non-immigrant visa issued in Havana and has resided in Miami— staying in southern Florida hoping to adjust her migratory status.

“Let it be clear: the henchmen of the Castro regime and their accomplices have no place in the United States,” Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL) wrote in a social media post applauding the arrest of Rosales Aguirreurreta.

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Hasan Piker, Medea Benjamin Subpoenaed by Trump Administration

Remember back in March when Marxist influencer Hasan Piker, members of Code Pink, and other commies went to Cuba to essentially back up the regime, denounce Donald Trump and the United States, and make a mockery of the lives of the Cuban people? Well, it looks like they Trump administration isn’t letting that go lightly. 

Fox New Digital is reporting that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has issued administrative subpoenas to Piker and Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of Code Pink. According to Fox, it’s “part of a wider investigation into whether U.S. organizations and leaders violated U.S. laws and sanctions in supporting Cuba’s communist regime.”  

If you’ll recall, Piker and Benjamin were some of the faces of the group “Nuestra América Convoy,” mostly communist sympathizers who traveled to Cuba from multiple countries. They claimed they were there to bring humanitarian aid and investigate how U.S. sanctions and blockades were impacting the people of the country, but they spent their time cozying up with the Cuban regime and left the island nation shouting the regime’s propagandic talking points. 

While in Cuba, the group also stayed in a five-star hotel with power and held a concert (spoiler alert: it wasn’t acoustic) while much of the country suffered a blackout. They wined and dined at the hotel, while many people in the country dig through garbage to find food. They also took vehicle tours through the streets of Havana, as if they were on some sort of poverty porn safari tour and left claiming the people were out in the streets, having a good time.  

“But today is a beautiful day out here, 75 degrees, sunny — people are partying, people are partying in the f*cking streets,” Piker said, as if he’d been at a Margaritaville resort. “I don’t know if it’s like an island mindset — I don’t know if that has something to do with it; I’m sure it has something to do with it — but, like, they’re just chilling.”  

They’re out in the “f*cking streets” because they have no air conditioning, running water, or things to do inside, you moron, but I digress.  

Anyway, these subpoenas are called “Requests for Information,” and they seek to find out more about the financial, logistical, and communications information involved in planning the trip to determine if they violated any of the many U.S. sanctions on Cuba, including potentially unlicensed travel-related transactions, financing, logistics, delivery of goods, or contacts with sanctioned Cuban entities/government personnel. 

Fox reported earlier on Saturday that the Justice and Treasury Departments are “investigating U.S. nonprofits and activist groups for allegedly coordinating lobbying, messaging, fundraising, delegations, and political organizing efforts with Cuban government officials as part of a possible foreign influence campaign operating inside the United States.”  

According to Fox, 145 U.S. organizations that report around $1billion in combined revenue “are mobilizing in support of the Cuban government and the Communist Party of Cuba. 


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Secretary Rubio on Indicted Former Cuban Dictator: ‘Raul Castro Admits and Brags About Shooting Civilian Airplanes’ 

Castro is now a fugitive from US justice, Rubio reminded us.

Yesterday, when announcing the indictment of former Cuban dictator Raul Castro for conspiracy to kill US citizens, acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said that when someone kills Americans, it doesn’t matter how far they are or how much time has passed, the US will get to them.

Immediately, the speculation began: Will Donald J. Trump launch an op such as the one that captured Nicolas Maduro? Will the US invade Cuba and overthrow the Cuban dictatorship of Miguel Díaz-Canel?

So, today, as soon as the Secretary of State appeared in public, he was asked about Castro’s indictment and eventual capture.

“Reporter: How do you intend to get Raul Castro to the United States?

Rubio: Well, that was the, a grand jury in South Florida returned an indictment of Raul Castro, nothing to do with us. The grand jury, the evidence is clear, he admits to it. Raul Castro openly admits and brags about, he shot down, gave the order to shoot down civilian airplanes.

Reporter: How would you get him here?

Rubio: Well, I’m not going to talk about how we’re going to get him here. If we were trying to get him here, why would I say to the media what our plans are about that? I know you have to ask, but why would I answer that? The bottom line, he’s at that point, he becomes a fugitive of American justice. And well, if there’s an announcement of a positive, I will tell you, we’ll tell you afterwards, not before.”

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US Deploys Aircraft Carrier To Caribbean As Trump Admin Pressures Cuba

The U.S. military command operating in the Western Hemisphere said on May 20 that an aircraft carrier strike group entered the Caribbean Sea, as the Trump administration heaps pressure on the Cuban communist regime.

In a post on X, U.S. Southern Command said that the USS Nimitz is now in the Caribbean and released video footage of the carrier group. Southern Command did not provide more details about why the carrier group traveled to the region.

The Nimitz, it said, “has proven its combat prowess across the globe, ensuring stability and defending democracy from the Taiwan Strait to the Arabian Gulf.”

The Nimitz, commissioned in 1975, carried out joint naval exercises with the Brazilian Navy off the coast of Rio de Janeiro last week, the U.S. Embassy in Brazil said in a May 14 statement.

On May 20, the Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed a criminal indictment against former Cuban leader Raul Castro, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio released a video in Spanish urging Cubans to reject the country’s communist leadership.

According to the DOJ indictment, Castro was indicted in connection with the 1996 downing of civilian planes operated by Miami-based exiles. Castro, now 94, was Cuba’s defense minister when the planes were shot down, killing four people.

The charges against Castro, the brother of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, drew pushback from the country’s current leader, Miguel Diaz-Canel, in a post on X.

“This is a political maneuver, devoid of any legal foundation, aimed solely at padding the fabricated dossier they use to justify the folly of a military aggression against Cuba,” Diaz-Canel wrote.

This year, U.S. President Donald Trump has been ratcheting up talk of regime change in Cuba and said he would potentially initiate a “friendly takeover” of the country if its leadership did not open up its economy to American investment and kick out U.S. adversaries.

When asked what will happen next for the U.S. embargo on Cuba on Wednesday, Trump said, “We’re going to see.” He added that the U.S. government is ready to provide humanitarian assistance to what he described as a failing country.

Trump said that “there won’t be escalation” between the United States and Cuba, adding, “I don’t think there needs to be.”

“Look, the place is falling apart. It’s a mess,” Trump added. “They’ve really lost control of Cuba.”

In Cuba, there is no food, electricity, or energy, Trump said, adding that the U.S. government will have to act to assist the country.

Earlier this month, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Cuba to meet with the country’s top officials, a visit that came as the country’s energy minister said the island has completely run out of fuel and that its power grid is in a critical state.

In January, the U.S. military launched an operation in Venezuela that captured its president, Nicolas Maduro, an ally of the Cuban regime, and took him to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges.

Since September 2025, the U.S. military has been launching strikes against suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean in what the military calls Operation Southern Spear.

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The US indictment of Raúl Castro and the record of CIA terror against Cuba

On May 20—marking 124 years since the US ended its military occupation of the island and the Cuban Republic was formally proclaimed in 1902—the Trump administration delivered its most naked threat yet against the island.

The US Justice Department unsealed an indictment on murder and conspiracy charges against Raúl Castro, 94, in connection with the 1996 downing of two aircraft operated by the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue.

Retired from public office for nearly a decade, Castro previously served as Cuba’s president and leader of its ruling party. He was one of the comandantes of the guerrilla army led by his brother Fidel that came to power in 1959.

Hours before the indictment was announced, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted a Spanish-language video addressed directly to the Cuban people, demanding regime change and advocating the policy of recolonization that Washington is pursuing across Latin America.

The unsealing of the indictment in Miami Wednesday resembled less a legal proceeding than a campaign rally with Washington’s counterrevolutionary agents gathered to cheer for Donald Trump and applaud the prospect of direct US military intervention against Cuba.

Amid this right-wing celebration, one question was noticeably ignored: Who will be held accountable for the 66 years of unrestrained US violence, killings and terror against Cuba?

The indictment against Raúl Castro is an abominable act of political propaganda to justify a planned military aggression against an impoverished nation of less than 10 million people.

The three-decade-old incident referred to in the indictment is the February 24, 1996 shootdown of two Brothers to the Rescue planes over the Straits of Florida, which has been systematically misrepresented by every US administration since Bill Clinton’s. The Clinton administration, the Republican Party and the corporate media all denounced it as “cold-blooded murder,” invoking international statutes barring the use of military force against civil aircraft. The CIA insisted that José Basulto, the pilot of the plane that escaped, and the others were not paid US intelligence agents.

None of this was true. The Cuban Embassy in the United States responded to the indictment by recalling that Cuba had formally denounced more than 25 territorial violations by Brothers to the Rescue between 1994 and 1996—protests that Washington systematically ignored.

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Communist Dictator Miguel Díaz-Canel Threatens ‘Bloodbath’ Against America as Cuba Stockpiles 300+ Russian and Iranian Drones in Desperate Panic Under Trump’s Crushing Pressure

Cuba’s blood-soaked communist dictator Miguel Díaz-Canel lashed out Monday, warning that any U.S. military action against his crumbling island prison would unleash a “bloodbath with incalculable consequences.”

The thug-in-chief, who has spent years crushing dissent, jailing protesters, and turning Cuba into a starving socialist dumpster fire, took to X to spew his hollow threats after explosive reports revealed his regime has been quietly amassing over 300 military drones from Russia and Iran.

Just days ago, reports emerged that the Trump administration was weighing aggressive options amid growing national security concerns surrounding Cuba, while CIA Director John Ratcliffe reportedly warned Havana that it could no longer function as a “safe haven for adversaries.”

According to classified intelligence cited by Axios, Cuban officials have acquired more than 300 military drones of varying capability since 2023 and have held discussions about how such systems could be used in the event of hostilities with Washington.

Potential targets discussed include the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, American military vessels, and possibly even locations in southern Florida, including Key West.

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