The absence of Cuba as a country collaborating with the United States in the fight against drug traffickingin Washington’s annual report on the subject, is due to political reasons, according to the assessment of island authorities.
Ybey Carballo, head of the Staff of the Border Guard Troops, considered that there is “a political intention on the part of the State Department,” by ignoring Cuba’s cooperation in the report on confronting this scourge in 2025. the agency reported EFE.
“It is not rational that this happens in a country (Cuba) that permanently provides information to the main consumer of drugswhich is the United States,” added the First Colonel in statements issued during a press conference.
According to his criteria, this exclusion could be a strategy to apply to the island a military operation similar to the one carried out against Venezuela on January 3, which resulted in the arrest and transfer to the United States of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, both accused of drug trafficking activities.
The senior officer highlighted the island’s “record of service” in the fight against drug trafficking and said that it has been “transparent,” the news dispatch adds.
Regarding Washington’s decision to declare the island an extraordinary threat to its national security, Carballo maintained that “Cuba has nothing to fear.”
He also commented that the 2024 State Department report, and previous years, had recognized that the island “is not a major consumer, producer, or transshipment point of illicit drugs.”
The Cuban Government denies any link with drug trafficking and targets the United States
Contact level
The idea that relations between the anti-drug trafficking structures of the United States and Cuba have diminished was confirmed to the press by Colonel Juan Carlos Poey, head of the Specialized Anti-Drug Confrontation Body of the Ministry of the Interior (Minint).
The soldier assured that there is “exchange of messages with border guard troops, but this should not be confused with the fact that there is fluid communication” with the United States.
Poey specified that since 2016 a cooperation agreement with Washington has been implemented that has been affected during the mandates of President Donald Trump “when implementing fluid exchange with the services of that country.”
However, he explained that despite this situation, Cuba maintains its willingness to cooperate with the United States, due to the presence of shared “risks”, just as it does with the neighboring northern nation and other nearby nations, such as the Bahamas, Jamaica and Mexico.
Cuba dismantles a drug trafficking network that introduced a million doses of “the chemical”
Illustrative figures
In another part of his speech, Poey explained that synthetic drugs currently have the most widespread presence in Cuba and added that, for the most part, they come from the United States.
The official confirmed that during the past year around 76 kilograms of these synthetic drugs were seized in the country, especially aboard vessels intercepted in Cuban waters.
In the case of maritime shipments, the drugs seized last year reached 1,941 kilograms, according to a information disclosed by the newspaper Granma.
At the end of 2025, 31 air operations had been hindered, in which 27 kilograms of drugs were seized, mainly cocaine, synthetic cannabinoids and methamphetamines.
These narcotics came from 11 countries, and among them the United States appears as the main emitter.
The joint figures for 2024 and 2025 indicate that 75 operations of this type were aborted in the country, which allowed the authorities to seize more than 100 kilograms of drugs.
In turn, the head of the Ministry of Justice (Minjus), Rosabel Gamón, admitted that the country faces “risks from traditional routes,” and reaffirmed the criminal policy of “maximum rigor” in the face of crimes related to drug trafficking.
To this he added that, after the approval of the 2019 Constitution, criminal and administrative regulations have been updated that reinforce rigor against drug-related crimes, in line with the State’s zero tolerance policy.
