Tag: cuba

First Iran, Then Cuba: Trump Has Dropped the Peace-President Mask

Donald Trump did not merely let slip a reckless aside when he said he wanted to “finish this one first” – meaning Iran – before turning to Cuba. He revealed a governing mindset. Countries become items in a queue. War becomes a scheduling matter. One theater before the next, one pressure campaign before the next, one performance of toughness before the cameras move on. That is not strategic restraint. It is imperial casualness masquerading as command. Reuters reported on March 5 that Trump said he wanted to finish the war in Iran first and that it would then be only “a question of time” before attention shifted to Cuba; two days later, Reuters reported him saying Cuba was already negotiating with him and Marco Rubio.

What makes the remark more damning is the promise it betrays. Trump sold himself to voters as the man who would stop wars, not start them. In his inauguration address, he said his “proudest legacy” would be that of a “peacemaker and unifier,” and that America’s success should be measured not only by the battles it wins but by the wars it ends and the wars it never gets into. Even in late February, the White House was still branding him the “President of Peace.” Yet the administration is now openly talking about winning the war with Iran, rejecting negotiations, and even asserting a right to shape Iran’s political future.

You do not have to praise the Iranian state to recognize the danger in that. The issue is not whether one approves of Tehran. The issue is whether an American president who campaigned against endless war is now normalizing the oldest and most discredited habits of Washington foreign policy: regime-change rhetoric, contempt for diplomacy, and the fantasy that bombing can substitute for strategy. When Trump says he is not interested in negotiating and muses that there may be nobody left to say “we surrender,” he is not sounding like a dealmaker. He is sounding like every hawk who has ever confused devastation with victory.

The Cuba remark matters for another reason as well. It suggests that Iran is not being treated as a singular emergency but as one stop in a broader politics of coercion. That is how permanent interventionism works. Every crisis is packaged as exceptional, urgent, and morally self-evident – until the language starts to slide. First this country, then that one. First “finish” Iran, then move on. First present force as a necessity, then sell the next confrontation as inevitable. Trump’s words make that rhythm impossible to miss. The vocabulary may shift from threat to negotiation to triumphalism, but the premise remains the same: Washington decides, others adjust.

Congress, meanwhile, is doing what Congress so often does when presidents discover a taste for undeclared war: almost nothing. On March 4, a Senate majority voted to block a bipartisan war-powers resolution that would have required congressional authorization for hostilities against Iran. That abdication is not a procedural footnote. It is one of the great mechanisms by which American wars become easier to start, harder to stop, and almost impossible to own. Presidents escalate. Legislators grumble. Then the war machine keeps moving.

And it is moving fast. Reuters reported this weekend that the administration used emergency authority to bypass Congress and expedite the sale of more than 20,000 bombs to Israel, just as the joint U.S.-Israeli air war against Iran entered its second week. This is what “peace through strength” usually means in practice: fewer restraints, more munitions, and a shorter distance between rhetoric and rubble. The slogan is designed to comfort Americans into believing that force is a form of stability. More often, it is simply the marketing language of escalation.

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Trump and Rubio Give Final Offer to the Castros and Díaz-Canel: “Off-Ramp” to Cede Power Without Forced Exile or End Up Like Maduro in Prison

President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are pushing an economic agreement with the Cuban regime that includes an “off-ramp” —a negotiated exit— to allow the Castro family and President Miguel Díaz-Canel to cede power without forced exile, according to an exclusive report from The Telegraph.

The plan would allow these leaders to remain on the island in exchange for concessions in ports, energy, and tourism, with possible selective relief in sanctions.

The conversations involve Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, grandson of Raúl Castro, who maintains key influence. Rubio, son of Cuban immigrants, leads the high-level negotiations, as confirmed by Trump in public statements.

The president has said that “Cuba is in its final moment of life as it is” and that an agreement will be reached “very easily”.

This pressure intensified after the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores on January 3, 2026, in Caracas by U.S. forces.

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CIA accused of secret bioweapon experiments linked to major outbreak in its own people

A biochemist has claimed to have found evidence that the modern Lyme outbreak in the US could have been the result of CIA bioweapon experiments.

Dr Robert Malone, who helped lay the groundwork for mRNA vaccine technology, made the explosive allegations this week after analyzing declassified government documents, historical records from Cold War biological weapons programs and scientific research on tick-borne diseases.

Malone highlighted experiments in the 1960s that allegedly released more than 282,000 radioactive ticks in Virginia and open-air tick research at Plum Island, a federal laboratory located near the Connecticut community where Lyme disease was first identified.

The experiments were designed to track how disease-carrying ticks spread through the environment, with scientists marking the parasites using radioactive Carbon-14 so their movements could be detected with Geiger counters, a portable, gas-filled instrument. 

Malone’s report argued the research was part of a much larger Cold War biological weapons program known as Project 112, which involved dozens of secret tests aimed at studying how insects could be used to spread pathogens.

The program, authorized by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in 1962, oversaw 134 planned tests and included facilities capable of breeding millions of infected insects each week.

According to the report, the same region where these experiments took place later experienced an unprecedented surge in tick-borne illnesses.

Malone’s claims follow calls from US officials to investigate whether federal agencies experimented with pathogen-laden ticks as tools of war.

In December 2025, an amendment by New Jersey Representative Chris Smith called for a review of military, NIH and USDA projects from 1945 to 1972 involving Spirochaetales and Rickettsiales, bacteria linked to tick-borne diseases. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has also suggested Lyme disease may have originated from a failed US bioweapons program in the 1970s tied to research at Plum Island. 

Plum Island is an 840-acre island off the northeastern coast of Long Island, New York, and home to the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, a government lab used since the 1950s to study infectious animal diseases.

However, the Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly said Lyme disease was never studied at the facility.

Malone’s report also claims key research into a second tick-borne pathogen may have been suppressed.

He alleged the government sidelined research on a pathogen known as the ‘Swiss Agent,’ which was detected in Lyme patients in Europe during the 1970s.

Malone, an expert in biology who earned multiple degrees at the University of California, also accused the government of suppressing research on a second disease called the ‘Swiss Agent’ found in Lyme patients in Europe in the 1970s.

Unpublished papers from Willy Burgdorfer, the scientist who discovered the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, suggested the pathogen complicated treatment because it triggered persistent symptoms that did not respond to standard antibiotics. 

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Iraq and Cuba hit by blackouts amid US pressure and attacks on Iran

Both Iraq and Cuba have been plunged into nationwide blackouts, with the Middle Eastern country’s grid collapsing after a sudden drop in gas supplies to a major power plant in Basra, while the Caribbean island’s outage is being blamed on chronic fuel shortages worsened by the US blockade on Venezuelan oil.

The day before the Iraqi blackout, an Electricity Ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying that “incomplete supplies” of gas from neighboring Iran were already affecting power plant operations. Iran has been facing a massive US-Israeli air campaign since Saturday.

A separate power facility also experienced a shutdown in central Salah al-Din province, with local police explicitly denying reports that the station was targeted by an attack, according to the state-run INA news agency.

Iraq relies on Iranian gas for 30-40% of its power generation. The dependence is a direct consequence of decades of foreign intervention in the country. Before the 1991 Gulf War, the grid, though strained by sanctions, largely met demand. The war destroyed 75% of its generating capacity, and the 2003 US-led invasion caused a catastrophic collapse to less than 10% of prior output.

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Declassified Documents Link U.S. Bioweapons Program to Lyme Disease Outbreak

An extensive investigation based on declassified government documents and previously suppressed scientific research has uncovered compelling evidence that U.S. biological weapons programs contributed to the emergence of Lyme disease, which now affects hundreds of thousands of Americans annually.

The investigation reveals a pattern of concealment spanning six decades, including the systematic suppression of critical medical research and the release of nearly 300,000 radioactive ticks across Virginia to study how the disease-carrying insects would spread.

CIA Deployed Infected Ticks Against Cuba

Declassified documents and testimony from a CIA operative describe the 1962 deployment of infected ticks against Cuban sugarcane workers as part of Operation Mongoose, the Kennedy administration’s effort to destabilize Fidel Castro’s regime.

The operative, now in his seventies, told researchers that the “strangest thing he ever did was drop infected ticks on Cuban sugarcane workers” using C-123 transport aircraft flying nighttime missions “almost skimming the surface of the Caribbean to avoid Cuban radar.”

After returning from Cuba, the operative’s four-month-old son developed life-threatening fever requiring emergency surgery. His CIA commander advised him to “burn all the clothes you took to Cuba. Burn everything,” indicating contamination concerns.

The deployment was canceled when “Cuba’s shifting winds made accurate payload delivery difficult,” according to the operative’s account.

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‘Cuba’s Next,’ Says Lindsey Graham as Illegal Trump-Israel War on Iran Kills Hundreds

As American and Israeli bombs kill hundreds of Iranians – reportedly including at least 180 students and others at a girl’s school in Minab – Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that President Donald Trump is “on a roll” and that Cuba is the next nation in the US regime change crosshairs.

In an interview on Fox News, Graham (R-SC) said prematurely that “Trump finished the job” that former President Ronald Reagan “failed to do,” namely, destroy Iran’s Islamist government after the overthrow of a brutal US-backed monarchy in 1979. “I am a big admirer of Ronald Reagan but I’m here to tell you that Donald Trump, in my opinion, is the gold standard for Republicans, maybe any president, when it comes to foreign policy.”

“Maduro – everybody talked about him, well, Donald Trump’s got him in jail,” Graham said of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who was abducted along with his wife two months by invading US forces.

“Cuba’s next. They’re gonna fall,” Graham said of the revolutionary government in Havana that’s outlasted a dozen American presidents, despite decades of US-led assassination attempts, sabotage, and subversion. “This communist dictatorship in Cuba, their days are numbered.”

The remarks by Graham – who previously berated Trump as a “jackass,” “nut job,” and “loser” unfit to be commander-in-chief – come amid reporting that Trump is feeling buoyed by what he views as successful attacks on Iran and Venezuela.

“The president is feeling like, ‘I’m on a roll,’ like, ‘This is working,’” one unnamed Trump administration official told the Atlantic‘s Vivian Salama over the weekend.

This, from a president who said he deplored regime change and vowed “no new wars” while running for reelection.

A day before launching the US-Israeli war of choice against Iran, Trump floated what he described as a “friendly takeover” of Cuba, prompting vehement condemnation from Havana. Cuba is already suffering under decades of US sanctions that have devastated the socialist nation’s economy and the well-being of its people.

In January, Trump issued an executive order baselessly declaring that Cuba poses “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security and tightening the blockade to further starve the island of fuel.

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South Florida residents react to Trump administration’s decision to sell Venezuelan oil to Cuban private businesses

People across South Florida are reacting to a major shift in U.S. policy toward Cuba, following the federal government’s announcement that it will allow fuel imports for the island’s private sector.

The Trump administration has given the green light for Venezuelan oil to be sold to Cuba’s private businesses, not the Cuban government. Supporters say the policy could help ease severe shortages that have crippled daily life on the island, while critics fear the Cuban government could still benefit indirectly.

Some residents say, in theory, the plan could offer relief to Cuba’s struggling economy. Others question whether the Cuban government can truly be kept out of the process.

“This really tells me that the Trump administration, particularly the president, is more interested in business than he is in regime change,” said Andy S. Gomez, a retired dean of international studies at the University of Miami.

Others believe the move could help everyday Cubans who have been hit hardest by the country’s worsening crisis.

“If he doesn’t do it, I don’t know that anyone else will,” said Armando Parada.

Still, many remain unconvinced.

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Trump: “Maybe We’ll Have A Friendly Takeover Of Cuba”

President Trump told reporters on Friday afternoon that the U.S. could pursue a “friendly takeover” of Cuba, a comment from the president that comes as his administration moves to secure the Western Hemisphere and intensifies pressure on the communist regime in Havana through a crude-oil blockade.

“The Cuban government is talking with us. They’re in a big deal of trouble, as you know. They have no money, no anything right now, but they’re talking with us, Trump told reporters on the White House lawn. “Maybe we’ll have a friendly takeover of Cuba.

Trump repeated, “We could very well end up having a friendly takeover of Cuba.”

He continued, “After many, many years, we have had a lot of years of dealing with Cuba. I’ve been hearing about Cuba since I was a little boy. But they’re in big trouble. And something very well – and something positive could happen.”

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Leftists Unleash Fury on Pop Star Camila Cabello for Speaking Out Against Communist Atrocities in Cuba

Cuban American pop sensation Camila Cabello is being met with vicious attacks from leftists for using her social media to shine a light on the devastating humanitarian crisis gripping Cuba under its long-standing communist regime.

Cabello, who was born in Havana and immigrated to the United States with her family when she was seven, shared a series of photos from her childhood, including images of her in the communist “young pioneer” uniform, a symbol of the regime’s indoctrination efforts.

The singer also posted images of collapsed buildings and desperate Cubans rummaging through dumpsters for food.

In her caption, Cabello didn’t mince words about the “67 years of a failing dictatorship and an oppressive regime.”

“The Cuban people are suffering in an echo chamber where no one can hear them because to speak is to risk your life,” she wrote.

Cabello continued, “Many people are starving, looking for food in trash heaps, and the only way to survive is having relatives ship you boxes of medicine because not even the hospitals have medicine. The power is gone for so long that food spoils and water becomes scarce… The Cuban people have lived without dignity and without hope for too long. It’s no wonder so many Cubans have thrown themselves into shark-infested waters, making boats out of tires and sticks and risking their lives for freedom.”

The star encouraged her followers to support Caritas Cuba, a humanitarian organization providing aid to those in need.

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Cuba Says It Killed Four People Who Opened Fire From a US-Registered Speed Boat

The Cuban government said on Wednesday that its coast guard killed four people who opened fire from a US-registered speedboat that entered Cuba’s territorial waters, an incident that comes amid a ramped-up US oil embargo on the country that’s meant to bring about regime change.

The Cuban Interior Ministry said in a statement that the vessel approached within one nautical mile northeast of the El Pino channel north of Corralillo, a town in the central Cuban province of Villa Clara. As the Cuban coast guard vessel approached, the Interior Ministry said the people on the foreign boat opened fire, injuring the commander of the Cuban boat.

“As a result of the confrontation, at the time of this report, on the foreign side, four aggressors were killed, and six were injured, who were evacuated and received medical assistance,” the statement said.

The ministry said the boat was registered in Florida, just 90 miles from Cuba. So far, there’s been no comment from the US about the incident.

The Trump administration recently cut off Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba and pressured Mexico to end its oil exports, causing severe fuel shortages in the country. Last week, President Trump boasted of the impact his embargo is having on Cuba.

“Cuba is right now a failed nation, and they don’t even have jet fuel for airplanes to take off, clogging up their runway,” he said, adding that he wanted a “deal” with Cuba, but in the meantime, “there’s an embargo. There’s no oil, there’s no money, there’s no anything.”

It’s unclear what sort of “deal” President Trump wants with Cuba, and whether talks between Washington and Havana are underway. Drop Site News recently reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been blocking negotiations with Cuba while telling President Trump they were ongoing, while Axios reported that Rubio has held some talks with the grandson of Raul Castro.

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