Cuba has denied reports that it has acquired hundreds of drones to attack the US as its foreign minister accused President Trump of building a “fraudulent case” for war.
As tensions rise in the Caribbean, a report by the news outlet Axios suggested that Cuba had gathered more than 300 attack drones to use against the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, American warships or even Key West in Florida, 90 miles from the communist island’s northern coast.
A US official was quoted as saying that Cuba had bought drones of “varying capabilities” from Iran and Russia, beginning in 2023.
“When we think about those types of technologies being that close, and a range of bad actors from terror groups to drug cartels to Iranians to the Russians, it’s concerning,” the official said. “It’s a growing threat.”
The CIA director visited Havana last week. Cuba had just admitted that its oil reserves had been exhausted by the continuing US blockade.
John Ratcliffe held talks with Raúl Castro, known as Raúlito, the 41-year old heir to the revolutionary dynasty widely seen as Cuba’s powerbroker. He also met the head of the Cuban intelligence service and Lázaro Álvarez Casas, the interior minister, in Havana on Thursday.
John Ratcliffe, left, met Cuban officials last Thursdaycia/x/Reuters
Trump has said he will have the “honour” of taking Cuba, and the US has effectively blockaded the island since overthrowing Nicolás Maduro as president of Venezuela in January.
Cuba is suffering from rolling blackouts lasting up to 22 hours a day. Last week the energy minister said the country had run out of oil.
Appearing to respond to the Axios report, the Cuban foreign minister said that false statements had been leaked to media outlets by the American government.
“Without any legitimate excuse whatsoever, the US government builds, day after day, a fraudulent case to justify the ruthless economic war against the Cuban people and the eventual military aggression,” Bruno Rodríguez said on X. “Specific media outlets play along, promoting slanders and leaking insinuations from the US government itself. Cuba neither threatens nor desires war.”
However, he added: “It defends peace and prepares itself to confront external aggression in the exercise of the right to legitimate self-defence recognised by the UN charter.”
The Cuban embassy in the US said on X: “Those from the US who seek the submission and, in fact, the destruction of the Cuban nation through military aggression and war do not waste a single moment fabricating pretexts, creating and spreading falsehoods and distorting as extraordinary the logical preparation required to face a potential aggression.”
Democrats accused Trump of fabricating evidence to build a case for attacking the country.
“No country in the current economic and military situation that Cuba is in would ever pre-emptively strike a super power like the US,” said Ruben Gallego, the Democratic senator for Arizona. “This is just propaganda to build a case for an invasion of Cuba.”