A Cuban citizen identified as Cristhian Yadier Sánchez posted two videos on Facebook in which he openly challenges President Donald Trump and asserts that the United States will not overcome the Cuban resistance, which he refers to as “the Commander’s trench”.
The videos respond to Trump’s recent threats to deploy the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier off the coast of Cuba.
In an interview with Salem News Channel, Trump stated that he would stop the ship "a few hundred meters off the coast" to observe how the regime would react, reiterating a threat he had already made on May 1 during a private dinner in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Sánchez records his videos from a mountainous area he calls his "mountain dog" or "wilderness," and he builds his discourse on the historical rhetoric of Cuban resistance.
"Manigua, which at a certain moment was the trench of the Mambises, of Maceo, of Máximo Gómez, of Agramonte, of Martí, of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, then the jungle or wild brush, that was the trench of our undefeated Commander in Chief, of Raúl, of the entire Centennial generation. And now it is the trench of this dignified Cuban who is here, who is willing to defend his homeland at any time and whenever necessary," he declares in the first of the two videos.
In the second one, using a more raw and direct language, he calls Trump "crazy" and throws down a bold challenge: "We are not afraid, we are not afraid. These wild dogs or these mutts, as people call me, the wild dog where you live, are trenches, brother. Impenetrable, impenetrable."
One of Sánchez's central arguments is the death of 32 Cuban military personnel in Venezuela during the U.S. operation that captured Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026.
Cuba confirmed that those agents from the FAR and MININT died protecting the then Venezuelan president against about 200 members of the Delta Force. Sánchez uses this episode as proof of bravery: "We know that their power is superior to ours, but the guts of us Cubans are greater than yours. And I have already demonstrated this in Venezuela: there were 32, 32, against 200 of those guys."
The citizen also accuses Trump of having concealed information about that operation: "What did you do? You dedicated yourself to telling lies, you dedicated yourself to hiding information from the very American people, from the very people of the United States. And so here in Cuba, it's not going to be 32."
Sánchez's speech comes alongside the official responses from the regime regarding the threat of the aircraft carrier, though with a much more visceral tone.
The chancellor Bruno Rodríguez joked on Tuesday asking, "What will we do with that enormous mass of metal?" and suggested using it as a "dance floor," while Miguel Díaz-Canel posted on social media that "no aggressor, no matter how powerful, will find surrender in Cuba."
Sánchez's reaction is not an isolated case. On social media, other Cubans have also responded to the aircraft carrier's threat with positions ranging from defiance to skepticism and mockery towards the regime itself.
Some internet users have taken aim at those posing defiantly in front of a rock while the country endures blackouts and shortages.
The escalation of tensions between Washington and Havana intensified on January 29, 2026, when Trump signed Executive Order 14380 designating Cuba a national security threat and imposing an energy embargo.
On May 1, sanctions were expanded in energy, defense, mining, and finance, with asset blocks and secondary sanctions on foreign banks. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned on April 27 that Cuba "only has two destinies: none that are good."
The MINFAR, for its part, published in January on social media that "no enemy will be safe in Cuba," promising mines and ambushes as part of military preparation, continuing the same warlike rhetoric that Sánchez now reiterates from his "mountain dog."
Filed under: