Tag: cuba

Trump and Rubio Are Reviving the Old Cold War Racket Against Cuba

President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are making me feel like I’m smack dab back in the middle of the old Cold War racket — the racket that succeeded in making the U.S. national-security state and its ever-growing army of “defense” contractors a permanent feature of American life.

The State Department just issued a report that is straight out of the old Cold War playbook. It states that Cuba’s communist regime is behind the democratic socialist movements and radical leftist groups here in America . Reinforcing the report, Rubio delivered a talk last week at a big event hosted by the State Department in which he stated that Cuba’s “sprawling intelligence and ideological network helped to build the far left in our country and in our hemisphere.”

In other words, the Reds are coming to get us … again! Everyone needs to start looking under his bed for a Red … again! And Cuba, which is located only 90 miles away from American shores, is clearly the spearhead of the international communist conspiracy that is determined to take over America … again! Too bad Senator Joseph McCarthy is no longer here when we need him.

First question for Rubio: Is the international communist conspiracy still centered in Moscow or has it moved to Beijing?

Second question for Rubio: Is socialist-communist Cuba also responsible for Rubio’s fervent belief in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public (i.e., government) schooling, and other socialist programs here in the United States?

The Cold War racket was the best thing that ever happened to the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA, the three principal components of the U.S. national-security state. By striking deep fear of the Reds within the American people after World War II, warfare statists succeeded in converting the federal government from our founding system of a limited-government republic to a national-security state, which is a totalitarian-like governmental structure — and they did it without even the semblance of a constitutional amendment.

That’s how Americans ended up living under omnipotent government — that is, government that wields the power to assassinate, torture, and incarcerate them for life without due process of law and trial by jury.

It’s also how Americans have come to live under forever war and never-ending crises.

It’s also how Americans live like little serfs under a massive, all-powerful, and very expensive military-intelligence establishment and its ever-growing army of voracious “defense” contractors.

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State Department blames one country for communism infecting U.S.

President Donald Trump has commented several times about the possibility of the United States taking action that would involve a takeover of Cuba.

Now the State Department has released a report, “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism,” that offers a foundation for such action.

It explains it’s because Cuba’s leftist ideologies and impulses have been behind many of the extremism agendas invading America right now.

Forbes said the report makes “inflammatory” claims, accusing Cuba of “fostering an anti-American network of left-wing activism in the U.S.,” including the Democrat party’s latest flame, the Democratic Socialists of America, as well as Black Lives Matter and more.

The report reviews tensions between Cuba and the U.S. from the Cold War on, and looks at the island nation’s “sprawling revolutionary network that shaped a disproportionate share of America’s most famous and influential extremist movements.”

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REPORT: Pentagon Draws Up Plans for Possible Military Action Against Communist Cuba

Senior Pentagon officials are reviewing military options for Cuba as the Trump administration intensifies pressure on Havana’s communist government.

According to CBS News, the planning reportedly includes a possible Army-led air assault involving thousands of U.S. troops from the 101st Airborne Division.

Officials stressed that no operation has been approved and that the discussions remain at the contingency-planning stage.

The review follows months of escalating pressure on the communist regime.

President Trump restored Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism after returning to office, expanded restrictions on travel and financial transactions, and targeted the military-controlled conglomerate GAESA, which dominates much of the island’s hard-currency economy.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has pushed for a negotiated transition to a reform-minded government, but talks have stalled.

In a recent statement, Rubio said Cuba’s ruling elite continues to maintain “total control” while clinging to a “morally bankrupt Marxist ideology.”

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Rubio Revokes Legal Status of Alleged Cuban Communist Influence Operative as Feds Take Him and Family Into Custody

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has revoked the legal status of an alleged Cuban Communist influence operative, resulting in federal agents taking the man, his wife, and their son into custody pending removal from the United States in yet another major national security action by the Trump administration.

According to the State Department, Carlos Antonio Lloga Dominguez, a Cuban national who spent more than a decade working as a “foreign subversive” for the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People (ICAP), the regime’s premier influence and intelligence front group operating on American soil, has been taken into federal custody along with his wife and son. All three are now in federal immigration custody pending removal from the United States.

The State Department announced the action on Wednesday after Rubio terminated their legal status. This is America First leadership in action.

Official Statement from the U.S. State Department:

“This week, three Cuban nationals were apprehended by federal agents following Secretary Rubio’s termination of their legal status. Carlos Antonio Lloga Dominguez – who spent more than a decade working as a foreign subversive for the Communist Cuban regime’s premier influence and intelligence front group in the United States – and his wife and son are now in federal custody pending removal from our country.

Lloga Dominguez spent more than a decade employed by the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People (ICAP). He has continued to maintain ties to the transnational communist subversion network throughout his time residing in our nation.

ICAP, which Secretary Rubio designated for sanctions under Executive Order 14404 earlier this month, is the central node in a sprawling Cuban intelligence and influence operation, claiming to span more than 2,000 organizations across more than 150 countries.

The organization has a long and intimate relationship with Cuban intelligence agents; in fact, ICAP’s current president, Fernando González Llort, is a convicted Cuban spy who served 15 years in U.S. prison for his role in the infamous Wasp Network — a massive illegal Cuban spy ring uncovered in Florida in the late 1990s.

Working in close coordination with the Cuban communist regime, ICAP maintains an outsized footprint across the United States, trafficking in vile anti-American propaganda, cultivating pro-Havana regime activists and politicians, and lobbying federal, state and local politicians on behalf of the Cuban dictatorship.

The organization facilitates close working relationships between Havana and radical U.S. groups, using America’s far left milieu as a vehicle to export Cuba’s Communist revolution to the United States.

Under the Trump Administration, America will never become home for Cuban Communist regime thugs who peddle propaganda, run foreign influence operations, or seek to wage revolution against American civilization.

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The Myth Of Price Controls

The Cuban dictator Miguel Díaz-Canel’s recent admission that Cuba’s generalized price caps failed to contain inflation, generated shortages, encouraged illegal markets, and reduced tax revenues is another confirmation of a much older economic lesson: price controls do not solve inflationary pressures, and they intensify the distortions they are meant to prevent.

The Cuban case is especially revealing because the criticism comes not from ideological opponents but from the regime that imposed the controls and later conceded their failure.

According to Díaz-Canel’s own remarks, price controls in Cuba produced the opposite of their intended effect: instead of stabilizing prices, they encouraged product scarcity, illegal-market activity, higher effective prices, and falling tax revenues. The government’s decision to eliminate price controls therefore amounts to an empirical acknowledgment that administrative decrees could not keep pace with economic reality.

This episode matters beyond Cuba because it captures the core mechanism of price control failure. When official prices are fixed below levels that would clear the market, legal suppliers reduce availability, quality deteriorate, and transactions migrate to informal channels where the real market price reappears, often with a premium for risk and scarcity. Thus, inflation is not abolished by decree but only transferred from the official statistics into queues, shortages, and the underground market.

The Austrian School of Economics has long argued that prices are not arbitrary numbers but indispensable signals coordinating dispersed knowledge across an economy. Ludwig von Mises claimed that intervening against market prices does not eliminate the underlying forces of supply and demand but rather creates secondary distortions that generate demands for additional intervention. Friedrich Von Hayek reminded us that market prices transmit information that no planner can centrally aggregate in real time, making administrative price fixing structurally destructive.

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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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