Miguel Díaz-Canel published a message this Friday commemorating the 25th anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers and directly accused the United States of committing "state terrorism" against Cuba.
The Cuban ruler began his publication with a quote from Fidel Castro made on the same day as the attacks, in which the then-leader asserted that the fight against terrorism must include "putting an end to state terrorism and other repulsive forms of killing, ending genocides, and faithfully pursuing a policy of peace and respect for moral and legal standards that are inevitable."
Building on that fragment as a framework for his argument, Díaz-Canel shifted the focus to the relations between Havana and Washington.
"Cuba, which has suffered for over 60 years from various types of terrorist attacks resulting in more than 3,400 deaths and 2,099 injuries, today faces a genocidal plan to subdue the people through hunger. That is also terrorism, state terrorism," wrote the ruler.
The message is part of a sustained rhetorical escalation throughout 2026 between the Cuban regime and the Trump administration.
In January 2025, the Trump administration reinstated Cuba to the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, after reversing the decision made just days earlier by the Biden administration to remove the island from that designation.
In May of that same year, it was also added to the list of countries that do not fully cooperate against terrorism, alongside North Korea, Syria, Iran, and Venezuela.
Throughout this year, the Department of State published reports linking the regime to armed groups such as the ELN and FARC, and in June, Secretary Marco Rubio described Cuba as the "capital of 21st century terrorism".
The Deputy Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío identified the United States as the "main source of terrorism" in the Western Hemisphere, while Díaz-Canel went so far as to label "corrupt" Rubio and linked him with drug traffickers and terrorists from Florida.
In August, Chancellor Bruno Rodríguez participated in events for the International Day of Victims of Terrorism, a gesture that critics of the regime deemed hypocritical given the repressive history of the Cuban government against its own population.
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