The Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla warned in an exclusive interview with ABC News conducted in Havana that military threats from President Donald Trump against Cuba could lead to "unimaginable consequences," including "a humanitarian catastrophe, genocide, the loss of lives of Cubans and young Americans," and "a bloodbath in Cuba."
The interview, conducted by journalist Whit Johnson, was published on Thursday, the same day the Trump administration announced new sanctions against GAESA and other entities of the Cuban regime.
"It seems that the U.S. government has chosen a dangerous path, one that could lead to unimaginable consequences," Rodríguez stated, who also asserted that conversations between both countries "are making no progress."
The chancellor categorically rejected discussing any internal matters of Cuba—government reforms, economic reforms, or the release of political prisoners—despite pressure from Washington.
The statements come in the context of a sustained escalation of tensions. On May 1, Trump signed Executive Order 14404 and designated Cuba as a national security threat, additionally threatening that the U.S. "will take Cuba almost immediately" after concluding operations in Iran.
Trump also suggested sending the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier "about 100 yards off the Cuban coast" to force the regime's surrender, a threat he reiterated on May 6.
On that same day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio presided over a conference at the SOUTHCOM headquarters in Doral, Florida, photographed in front of a map of Cuba under the slogan "Peace through Strength!", while the State Department deployed personnel to the SOUTHCOM in anticipation of possible hostilities.
The new sanctions announced on Thursday target the military conglomerate GAESA, its CEO Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, and the mining company Moa Nickel S.A., in addition to 12 other Cuban officials, seven military entities, and three vessels.
Rubio described GAESA as "the heart of the kleptocratic communist system of Cuba," with assets estimated at over 18 billion dollars and control of between 40% and 70% of the formal Cuban economy.
Following the sanctions on Moa Nickel, the Canadian company Sherritt International suspended all its operations in Cuba that same Thursday.
Since January 2026, Trump's maximum pressure strategy has accrued over 240 sanctions against the regime and intercepted at least seven oil tankers, reducing the island's energy imports by between 80% and 90%, resulting in blackouts of up to 25 hours a day that have severely affected the population.
The diplomatic impasse intensified following the expiration, around April 24, of a two-week ultimatum that Washington imposed, demanding the release of high-profile political prisoners like Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Osorbo, the opening of the internet, and political and economic reforms, all of which the regime rejected.
The Cuban chancellor had already described the new U.S. sanctions on Thursday as “collective punishment” with “genocidal intent against the Cuban nation”, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned that Washington seeks to provoke a social explosion in Cuba.
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