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The ambassador of Cuba in the United States, Lianys Torres Rivera, warned this Friday that the regime will not negotiate its sovereignty or its political system with the Trump administration, while revealing that Cuba is preparing militarily for a possible U.S. invasion.
Torres was emphatic in outlining the conditions. "We are preparing for this. We are doing it more than ever now. We cannot be naïve. We cannot be naïve," she emphasized in an exclusive interview with The Hill from the Cuban Embassy in Washington.
The statement comes at one of the most critical moments in the bilateral relationship in decades, a day after the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), John Ratcliffe, traveled to Havana with a direct message from Trump regarding his government's willingness to engage in economic and security policies, provided that the regime renounces being a refuge for American adversaries in the Western Hemisphere.
The diplomat also warned that an invasion would be a serious mistake. "It could be a great error. It could be a bloodbath. We don't want Cubans dying in Cuba," she stated, while also adding that they do not want to see any American soldiers die either.
Regarding the protests that have erupted in Havana, with cookware banging, barricades, and bonfires in neighborhoods and municipalities such as Santos Suárez, Luyanó, Lawton, Marianao, and Guanabacoa, Torres Rivera urged Washington not to misinterpret them.
"When they endure 20 hours of blackouts, they have complaints and express them," he claimed, but he also warned that the United States should not confuse that with a lack of will to resist.
Torres summarized the state of the bilateral relationship with a phrase that defines the moment: "We are going through one of the most difficult times, if not the most difficult, in the bilateral relationship," he emphasized.
The CIA director met in Havana with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, grandson of former president Raúl Castro, and the Minister of the Interior Lázaro Álvarez Casas, during the second official U.S. flight on Cuban soil since 2016.
The CIA warned that "the window of opportunity will not remain open indefinitely" and that "Cubans should not have illusions that the president will not enforce the red lines," in a message that explicitly evoked the Venezuelan precedent.
In parallel, the State Department reiterated its offer of 100 million dollars in direct humanitarian aid, conditioned on the regime allowing its distribution through the Catholic Church and other organizations.
The Secretary of State Marco Rubio was straightforward about Washington's demands. "The model they have is broken. It doesn't work and it will never change as long as the people currently in charge are leading," he stated to the broadcaster NBC News the head of U.S. diplomacy.
As an additional backdrop, CBS News reported this Friday that the Trump administration is preparing legal action against former president Raúl Castro, 94 years old, for the shooting down of two planes belonging to the Cuban exile organization Brothers to the Rescue on February 24, 1996, in which four people died, in a strategy mirroring that used against Nicolás Maduro prior to his capture.
The energy crisis exacerbates the situation. Power outages reach up to 20 hours a day in some areas of Havana, linked to the loss of between 25,000 and 30,000 daily barrels of Venezuelan oil.
The Cuban Conflict Observatory recorded 1,133 protests in April of 2026, a 29.5% increase compared to the same month the previous year.
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