The United States is fully prepared to attack Cuba – and is building up troops and weapons in the Caribbean ahead of a potential escalation.
A months-long energy blockade on behalf of the Trump Administration has already plunged the island into a blackout, with food and medical supplies running low.
And by the end of 2026, the US government is hoping to ‘change the leadership’ of Cuba, and is looking for government insiders to ‘cut a deal’ to make it possible.
All the US military needs now is a final ‘go-ahead’ from Trump before launching a military attack on Cuba, Politico reported.
It would be easy for the US to begin hostilities. The US Navy has the largest build-up of troops in the Caribbean right now, only second to that in the Middle East.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned this week: ‘Cuba is in a lot of trouble. Having a failed state 90 miles from our shores is a threat to the national security of the United States.’
The recent indictment of Raúl Castro for allegedly shooting down planes in the 1990s, along with US claims that Cuba has drones which could ‘attack Florida’ could lay the groundwork for a military escalation.
Dr Stephen Wilkinson, of the International Institute for the Study of Cuba at The University of Buckingham, previously told Metro that a military coup in Cuba would be the biggest tragedy in American foreign policy in years.
‘Taking over Cuba is just another fantasy, just like the idea that the US can defeat Iran is a fantasy,’ he explained.
‘They’ve underestimated the Iranians, and they’re underestimating the Cubans. The Cubans are made of very tough stuff. They’re not going to give up.’
A brief history of the US-Cuba relationship
In 1803, the United States began to desire to take Cuba and make it a state of the Union. At the time, Cuba was a Spanish colony. Hopes of taking over the country then didn’t work out, but decades down the line, politicians made another attempt.
Cuba sits at the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico, and the US wanted sovereignty over the land to protect sea lanes towards the Mississippi Delta, and then the sea lanes to the Panama Canal.
Later, there were American investments in Cuban sugar and economic ties that made Cuba even more vital to the US.
‘The relationship has very little to do with 20th-century ideological struggles. It has mainly to do with 19th-century anti-colonial struggles,’ Dr Wilkinson told Metro. ‘The Cubans have wanted their sovereignty and independence and have fought for it for a long time.’
In 1902, the US intervened after Cuba won independence from Spain and imposed a constitution and settlement on the new country, which was met with backlash.
Throughout the 20th century, the Cuban people fought for independence again, before finally gaining it in 1959, when Fidel Castro took over.
The United States then tried to kill Castro and tried to invade during the failed Bay of Pigs.
For decades after Castro took power, many Cubans fled to the United States. In 2015, Barack Obama and Raúl Castro began normalising relations again in a major win for diplomacy.
When Trump took office for the first time, however, these were reversed, and Cuba was designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Why would the US attack Cuba?
For decades, the US has wanted government change in Cuba. Simply put, the US sees Cuban independence as a threat because its government and people don’t want US involvement at all, and are socialist.
The Cuban Missile Crisis also put a sour taste in Americans’ mouths after the Soviet Union placed nuclear missiles across Cuba, leading to a 13-day standoff between the two countries.
Cuba’s alliances with other countries, such as China, Venezuela, and Iran, have concerned US government officials.
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