Cuba braces for possible US military action amid blackouts, protests and Trump pressure

Cuba is bracing for a potential invasion from the United States, as negotiations with the Trump administration have produced no concrete results. Lianys Torres Rivera, the Cuban ambassador to the US, in an interview with the US media, The Hill, said that they were preparing to defend themselves “now more than ever”. Rivera said that it was a critical 24-hour period for Cuba. The US blockade of Cuba has led to a complete exhaustion of its fuel supplies, leading to widespread protests in the streets.

“When they are enduring 20 hours of blackouts, they have grievances, and they express them,” Rivera told The Hill. She again warned that the US should not confuse that with a Cuban surrender or a weakening Cuban resolve. She cautioned against taking a “wrong reading” of the situation.

“We are preparing for this,” Torres Rivera told The Hill of an invasion.

“Now we are doing more than ever. We cannot be naive. We cannot be naive. And in the way that we are preparing, it’s not in an offensive way. It’s not that we are preparing to be the first to do any action against the US territory or against the US people. We don’t want that. We are preparing to defend ourselves. And our minister was saying the other day, it could be a big mistake. It could be a bloodbath. We don’t want Cubans dying in Cuba,” she said, nor “any American soldier.”

The US have already floated ideas of “friendly takeover” of Cuba in February 2026, Trump called it a “failed nation”. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the current regime “incompetent”.“It’s in our national interest, and to have a prosperous Cuba, not to have a failed state 90 miles from our shores,” said Rubio. Marco Rubio, for years identified as belonging to a family of exiles of Cuban communist rule, later backtracked following a report by The Washington Post which revealed his parents, Mario and Oriales Rubio, actually immigrated legally to the US on a commercial flight in May 1956. This was over two and a half years before the Cuban Revolution succeeded. They left during the right-wing dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista primarily for economic opportunities.

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“We want Cubans not to have to leave that island to be successful. But they can’t, because the current model they have … it’s broken. It doesn’t work, and it’ll never change, as long as the people that are there now are running it,” said Rubio.

The Trump administration has publicly offered $100 million in humanitarian aid and free satellite internet to the island in May 2026. However, this financing comes with strict political stipulations: the Cuban government must enact sweeping, structural free-market and political reforms to receive the money. The administration has explicitly warned Cuban leaders to “make a deal before it's too late”.

CBS News on Thursday reported that the Trump administration was preparing to indict former Cuban President Raúl Castro on charges in connection with the shooting down of planes 30 years ago, something similar to the absurd trial of the abducted Venezuelan leader, Nicolas Maduro.

Cuba has recently opened its economy, announcing in March that it would allow Cubans living abroad to invest in the country and open businesses. The government also signed into law a policy giving small businessesgreater autonomy. But this did not impress the US, which had been strangling the economy for decades.

“Cuba has done nothing to put in danger the U.S., to put in danger your way of life, to put in danger your businesses, your national security. We are not a threat to the U.S., so there’s no reason for the US to invade Cuba or take any military action against Cuba. We are a small island that wants only to be left alone to decide our future in the way that Cubans want,” said Lianys Torres Rivera. In March 2026, Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío confirmed that the country is preparing for the "possibility of military aggression".The Cuban government is running drills in preparation for an invasion, said President Miguel Díaz-Canel, in a rare interview with a US media outlet.