by Jake Johnson | May 11, 2026 | Article, cuba, Iran, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint, Venezuela, War
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on May 11, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
US surveillance and reconnaissance flights off the coast of Cuba have surged in recent months as President Donald Trump has issued increasingly belligerent threats to seize the island nation by force.
CNN reported Sunday that the US Navy and Air Force have conducted more than two dozen surveillance flights—mostly of them near Havana and Santiago de Cuba, the country’s largest cities—since early February, after the Trump administration invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its president. The outlet noted that “similar patterns, in which ramped-up rhetoric by the Trump administration coincided with an uptick in publicly visible surveillance flights, occurred in the lead-up to US military operations in both Venezuela and Iran.”
“The flights are notable not only for their proximity to the coast, which puts them well within range of gathering intelligence, but for the suddenness of their appearance—prior to February, such publicly visible flights were exceedingly rare in this area—and for their timing,” CNN reported.
CNN published its story days after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced new sanctions targeting a conglomerate operated by Cuba’s military and a natural resources firm, intensifying the United States’ decades-long economic war against the island nation.
“Our people already know the cruelty behind the actions of the US government and the viciousness with which it is capable of attacking us,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said in response to the sanctions. “They understand, just as the rest of the world does, that this is a unilateral aggression against a nation and a population whose sole ambition is to live in peace, masters of their own destiny and free from the pernicious interference of US imperialism.”
In a New York Times op-ed on Monday, US Reps. Pramila
by Jon Queally | May 2, 2026 | cuba, Donald Trump, Miguel Díaz-Canel, News, Sanctions, Trump Administration, War
President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez of Cuba on Saturday responded with stark and defiant words to the latest attacks coming from U.S. President Donald Trump, who on Friday signed a new executive order authorizing even more aggressive sanctions against the island nation and later threatened to invade the country. “The President of the United States escalates his threats of military aggression…
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by Brett Wilkins | Apr 30, 2026 | cuba, Donald Trump, GOP, John Fetterman, News, Sanctions, War
The U.S. Senate on Tuesday defeated a Democrat-led bid to stop President Donald Trump from following through on his threat to wage war on Cuba, whose long-suffering people are reeling from the American administration’s tightened economic stranglehold. Upper chamber lawmakers voted 51-47 on a procedural motion to block further debate Sen. Tim Kaine’s (D-Virginia) SJ Res. 124…
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by Lee Schlenker | Apr 17, 2026 | cuba, Iran, News, Russia, Trump Administration, White House
Even with its hands full in an unpopular, costly and deadly war in Iran, the Trump administration seems to be ramping up preparations for military action in Cuba following weeks of relative calm between the two countries. On Tuesday, news outlet Zeteo reported that “officials at the Pentagon and elsewhere in the U.S. government were quietly given a new directive that came straight from the…
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by Yumna Rizvi | Apr 9, 2026 | cuba, Cuban, Gitmo, GTMO, Guantánamo, Mass migration, News, Trump Administration
On one side of Guantánamo Bay, U.S. soldiers face a temporary disruption in the availability of lattes. On the other side, Cubans sit in darkness, waiting for the power to come back on. Amid the Trump administration’s fuel blockade on Cuba, conditions in the country are deteriorating rapidly, raising the very real possibility of mass emigration. In February, the United Nations warned that a…
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by Jake Johnson | Mar 30, 2026 | Article, cuba, Oil, Politics and Movements: International, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint, Russia, Trump
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Mar. 30, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
President Donald Trump said Sunday that his administration would let a Russia-owned tanker carrying an estimated 730,000 barrels of oil to reach Cuba, loosening the illegal fuel blockade that has intensified the island’s already-grave humanitarian crisis.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said that “if a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem,” backing off his previous threat to tariff any nation that supplied the besieged island with fuel. Cuba has not received any oil imports since January 9, sparking nationwide blackouts and food shortages and leaving hospitals without critical supplies—with deadly consequences for patients.
Trump insisted that the oil on the Russian tanker—which experts say is enough to buy Cuba at least several weeks of energy—is “not going to have an impact,” declaring, “Cuba is finished.”
“They have a bad regime, and they have very bad and corrupt leadership,” added Trump, who presides over what analysts have deemed the most corrupt administration in US history. “Whether or not they get a boat of oil is not going to matter.”
Reporter: There’s a report that the US is going to let a Russian oil tanker go to Cuba? Trump: If a country wants to send some oil into Cuba, I have no problem with that.Reporter: Do you worry that that helps Putin?Trump: It doesn’t help him. He loses one boatload of oil.… pic.twitter.com/8Vh6gHwaxs— Acyn (@Acyn) March 30, 2026
Trump’s comments came after The New York Times reported that, “barring orders instructing it otherwise,” the US Coast Guard would not intercept the Russian tanker as it approached Cuba.
The Russian vessel, known
