Havana/The president of the United States, Donald Trump, launched this Sunday a warning explicit to the Castro regime: Cuba must “reach an agreement” with Washington or face the definitive rupture of the economic ties that have sustained the Island for decades. The Republican president stated on his Truth Social social network that “There will be no more oil or money for Cuba: zero!”, in direct reference to the flow of crude oil and resources that Venezuela supplied to Havana for years.
Shortly before, Trump shared on Truth Social a message from a user of the
Trump expanded his message: “Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of oil and money from Venezuela. In exchange, Cuba provided security services to the last two Venezuelan dictators. But no more!” he wrote.
The American president went even further when referring to the consequences of the recent military operation in Caracas. “Most of those Cubans are dead from the United States attack last week, and Venezuela no longer needs the protection of the thugs and extortionists who held it hostage for so many years,” he added, in one of the harshest statements directed so far against the Cuban presence in Venezuela.
The forcefulness of the message comes at a time of maximum geopolitical tension in the region, after the capture of Nicolás Maduro. The action has triggered a series of statements, warnings and strategic realignments involving not only Washington and Caracas, but also Havana.
According to public records from Flightradar24, several US military aircraft made flights near the northern coast of Cuba
Since Saturday, January 3, the Trump’s statements They have oscillated between emphasizing regional control and directly warning Chavismo’s historical allies. In recent interviews, the president has stated that the Cuban regime “is very close to falling” due to the loss of its main source of oil and financial support, although he has avoided publicly committing to direct military intervention on the island.
Added to this verbal escalation in recent hours was an unusual movement in regional airspace. According to public records from Flightradar24, several US military aircraft – identified by their speed, altitude and trajectory patterns – made flights near the northern coast of Cuba, without entering Cuban airspace. The routes, visible in real time on the platform, showed routes parallel to the coast and repeated turns in front of strategic points in the north of the Island, a display that analysts interpret as a sign of pressure and deterrence amid the hardening of Washington’s discourse. The aerial presence was widely commented on social networks and reinforced the perception that Trump’s warning to Havana is not limited to rhetorical terrain.
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has reinforced that speech. Of Cuban-American origin and a historical critic of the Havana regime, Rubio has repeatedly pointed out that Cuba played a key role in the survival of Chavismo and that the Venezuelan security structure was “basically full of Cubans.” In conferences and press conferences after the operation in Caracas, he stressed that, without that support, the Maduro regime would have collapsed much sooner.
Official figures on casualties during Maduro’s capture vary according to sources, but dozens of Venezuelan security personnel and at least 32 Cuban soldiers and agents were officially reported dead during the operation, a fact that the Cuban Government ended up recognizing after having repeatedly denied any military presence in Venezuela.
The Cuban regime and its spokespersons respond with the usual repertoire of denial, victimization and confrontation
This death toll occurs in the midst of a climate of sustained repression within Cuba, where hundreds of political prisoners continue to languish in the country’s prisons for exercising basic rights such as freedom of expression, demonstration or peaceful assembly.
Trump’s warning this Sunday is also part of a context of economic and social collapse that experts describe as unprecedented in the recent history of the Island. Cuba is going through a crisis without precedent in its history, marked by massive emigration, structural failures in essential services such as health and education, and an exhausted economic model that no longer manages to cover the basic needs of the population.
The end of Venezuelan subsidies, which in 2025 provided an average of about 27,000 barrels of oil per day to the Island, is an additional blow to an economy already burdened by frequent blackouts, internal production at historic lows and a chronic shortage of food and medicine.
The regime’s chancellor, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, rejected in the social network Washington’s accusations and denied any economic ties with the security services provided abroad. “Cuba does not receive and has never received monetary or material compensation for the security services it has provided to any country,” he wrote.
In his message, Rodríguez contrasted this position with that of the United States, which he accused of “mercenarism, blackmail and military coercion against other States,” and appealed to the Island’s right to import fuel “from those markets willing to export it.” The chancellor closed his statement with the usual rhetoric, calling the United States a “criminal and uncontrolled hegemon” that threatens the peace and security not only of Cuba and the hemisphere, but “of the entire world.”
Faced with pressure from the United States, the Cuban regime and its spokespersons respond with the usual repertoire of denial, victimization and confrontation. But the clock, politicians and analysts warn, is ticking rapidly against the interests of Havana.
