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Washington is not considering imminent military action against Cuba, despite the repeated threats from President Donald Trump and the maximum pressure escalation that his administration maintains on Havana, according to sources cited this Friday by the AP agency.
Officials also indicated that they are not optimistic about the Cuban government accepting a proposal of tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid, two years of free internet access from Starlink for all Cubans, agricultural assistance, and support for infrastructure.
However, they stated that the Cuban government has not outright rejected the offer, and they still have time to evaluate their decision. The identity of those sources was not disclosed by AP.
The clarification comes amid a week of contradictory signals. Trump has repeated that "Cuba is next" after the military operations against Iran.
Last Monday, he stated at a private dinner in West Palm Beach that the U.S. "will take Cuba almost immediately" upon the conclusion of those operations.
On Wednesday, he did not rule out applying the "Venezuela formula" on the island, referring to the capture of Nicolás Maduro in January 2026.
However, when asked directly about a possible military action, Trump responded: "It depends on your definition of military action," a phrase that encapsulates the deliberate ambiguity with which the administration has handled the Cuban issue.
The Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Thursday a new round of sanctions under Executive Order 14404, signed by Trump on May 1.
Rubio described GAESA as «the heart of Cuba's kleptocratic communist system», a military conglomerate that controls between 40% and 70% of Cuba's formal economy, with estimated assets of over 18 billion dollars.
He also warned that "additional appointments can be expected in the coming days and weeks."
On the same Thursday, the Canadian mining company Sherritt International suspended all its operations in Cuba and began to repatriate its employees, stating that the sanctions make it "materially impossible" to continue.
Its exit deprives the regime of between 10% and 15% of its electricity generation capacity, a direct blow to an island that is already suffering from blackouts of up to 25 hours a day in more than 55% of the territory.
The U.S. set June 5 as the deadline for foreign companies to cease their operations with GAESA under the threat of secondary sanctions.
Since January 2026, the Trump administration has accumulated over 240 sanctions against the regime and intercepted at least seven tankers, reducing Cuba's energy imports by between 80% and 90%.
In parallel, the State Department began to deploy personnel to Southern Command in Doral, Florida, in anticipation of possible hostilities.
The Pentagon has discreetly accelerated contingency plans for a possible intervention since mid-April, although the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier —which Trump threatened to position "just a few hundred meters" from the Cuban coast— remains deployed in the Northern Arabian Sea as part of Operation Epic Fury against Iran.
Díaz-Canel responded last Sunday before delegates from 36 countries, invoking the doctrine of the "War of All the People."
"Every Cuban man and woman has a rifle, a position in the defense, and a mission to fulfill," he declared, adding that "no aggressor will find surrender in Cuba."
Rubio summarized Washington's position on the regime as follows: "The only thing worse than a communist is an incompetent communist. They don't know how to fix it."
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