Lis Cuesta Peraza, wife of the Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel, published a quote from Fidel Castro about aircraft carriers and nuclear bombs this Tuesday on her X account, in a veiled response to the threats made by President Donald Trump to send the USS Abraham Lincoln to the shores of Cuba.
The message from Lis Cuesta on X, accompanied by the hashtag #LaPatriaSeDefiende, references a "reflection" by Castro dated May 4, 2008, titled "U.S. Hemispheric Response: The IV Intervention Fleet".
The quote selected by Lis Cuesta to respond to Trump's statements reads: "The aircraft carriers and nuclear bombs used to threaten our countries are meant to instill terror and death. They should also serve to shame the accomplices of the empire and to multiply solidarity among the peoples."
The parallel with the current moment is direct. On May 1, Trump threatened during a private dinner in West Palm Beach, Florida, to send the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln "to 100 meters off the coast of Cuba" to force the regime's surrender, conditioning the action on first concluding military operations in Iran.
"Upon returning from Iran, we will have one of our great... We will make them come closer... and they will say: 'Thank you very much. We surrender,'" Trump stated according to remarks collected regarding the deployment of the aircraft carrier.
The Cuban regime responded with a rhetoric of resistance that systematically invokes the figure of Fidel Castro as an ideological reference.
The chancellor Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla stated that "Cubans will not be intimidated" and warned that Cuba would be "a hornet's nest and a deadly trap in the event of an attack."
Lis Cuesta's post establishes a historical continuity between the threats of 2008—when Castro responded to the reactivation of the U.S. Fourth Fleet—and those of 2026.
On that occasion, Castro detailed the Nimitz-class aircraft carriers and denounced their use as an "instrument of terror."
However, the image attached to Lis Cuesta's tweet shows a page from a book with the phrase: «I only wish to fight as a soldier of ideas» and has a handwritten signature from Fidel Castro.
The tension between Washington and Havana has intensified in recent weeks. Since January 2026, the U.S. has imposed over 240 new sanctions on Cuba.
The U.S. Senate rejected on April 28 a Democratic resolution to limit Trump's war powers regarding Cuba, with 51 votes against and 47 in favor.
The regime has responded to pressure with mobilizations under the doctrine of "Total People's War." Díaz-Canel declared that "no aggressor, no matter how powerful, will find surrender in Cuba."
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