Washington — Because the U.S.-Iran struggle restarts following the collapse of the weeks-long ceasefire, senior Pentagon officers are additionally quietly eyeing one other flashpoint a lot nearer to residence: Cuba.
Navy planners have in latest weeks examined a spread of choices for potential motion towards the island, together with an Military-led air assault involving 1000’s of U.S. troopers to be carried out by the one hundred and first Airborne Division, the one unit educated for such a job, in response to a number of U.S. officers with information of the discussions.
The officers, who spoke to CBS Information below situation of anonymity to debate nationwide safety issues, pressured that the briefings aren’t a sign that President Trump or the Pentagon have determined to hold out an operation.
Any operation towards Cuba would confront the Pentagon with a major drawback as a result of a lot of the U.S. navy’s consideration and a few of its most useful offensive capabilities are already dedicated elsewhere. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has emphasised that the U.S. prefers a diplomatic possibility for a transition to a brand new authorities led by technocrats and keen to make financial reforms. That course of has stalled, regardless of tightening monetary stress across the Cuban navy and its conglomerate GAESA, the sprawling, military-controlled holding firm which the US refers to as an $18 billion belief fund. In a July 11 assertion, Rubio stated that to this point, the regime and its “corrupt elites” proceed to refuse reform, as an alternative “perpetuating their complete management” and adherence to a “morally bankrupt Marxist ideology.”
The State Division introduced that it has additionally tightened the monetary vice round Cuba’s state-owned entities that “funnel income to the regime and paramilitary forces” that repress the Cuban folks, together with fast response brigades.
Late final month, the U.S. navy held a concept-of-operations briefing to debate early-stage navy planning choices for choose missions that may very well be carried out, the officers stated. Such briefings are routinely developed by the Protection Division and combatant instructions for a spread of contingencies that look at mission targets, the variety of troops wanted, the sequence of occasions, logistical concerns and related dangers.
The Pentagon has shifted plane, intelligence belongings and different sources from different geographical areas to the Center East to maintain operations towards Iran. Officers who spoke to CBS Information stated that shifting the main target towards Cuba is not seemingly in the mean time, given the restart of navy operations towards Iran final week.
Behind the scenes, the struggle with Iran has uncovered some friction between President Trump and Hegseth, an Military veteran and former Fox Information host, in response to sources conversant in the matter. Whereas Mr. Trump has at instances praised Hegseth and varied navy operations throughout his second time period, he has privately expressed frustration with the progress of Operation Epic Fury, believing the administration missed a chance to avert a dragged-out battle earlier this 12 months by rejecting an Iranian proposal to restrict its nuclear program, the officers stated.
Two U.S. officers informed CBS Information that Hegseth urged a extra confrontational method to Iran, regardless of reservations voiced by Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers, leaving the president more and more dissatisfied because the navy marketing campaign has develop into extra protracted and sophisticated than initially anticipated when the struggle started again in February.
Over the course of the U.S.-Israel-led struggle towards Iran, Mr. Trump has been irritated by each Hegseth and Caine once they raised the constraints of navy operations. Some within the Protection Division and on the interagency staff have additionally expressed frustration with Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command, grumbling that he oversold what the navy might accomplish towards Iran, one of many sources stated.
Anna Kelly, a White Home spokeswoman, stated the president “has been terribly proud” of Hegseth and Cooper’s management “all through Operation Epic Fury, which utterly destroyed Iran’s ballistic missiles, manufacturing amenities, navy, air defenses, and extra.” She added that the latest U.S. strikes towards Iran show the U.S. “can assault anyplace, anytime, and Iran can do nothing about it.”
Performing Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez stated, “We don’t touch upon hypothetical navy operations,” and added that the division additionally would not touch upon Hegseth’s non-public conversations with Mr. Trump.
Cuba has offered new safety challenges. CBS Information beforehand reported that Cuba had acquired assault drones of unknown origin. Throughout a June 10 go to to the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Hegseth not directly acknowledged the potential of a risk to that set up.
“It could be unwise for the federal government of Cuba to attempt to procure or get entry to the varieties of weapons that might attain this base or the American homeland. They’d be inviting the type of confrontation not solely do they not need, however they might not stand,” he vowed.
Cuba and the U.S. have a longstanding dispute over the ability — after the 1959 Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro refused to money the checks, claiming the lease, signed in 1903, is invalid.
Hegseth acknowledged the U.S. was presenting navy choices to Mr. Trump, however supplied the potential of a extra peaceable relationship, saying the U.S. hopes to quickly be “a buddy of the management of the federal government of Cuba.”
CBS Information reported in Could that U.S. intelligence officers have been assessing how Cuba would reply to potential U.S. navy motion, because the Trump administration accused Havana of strengthening ties with Russia, China and Iran. The intelligence neighborhood’s 2026 annual risk evaluation largely portrays Cuba as an enabling atmosphere for bigger geopolitical rivals, fairly than as an impartial strategic risk. Notably, the March evaluation would not determine Cuba itself as possessing navy capabilities that materially threaten the U.S. or describe Havana as an impartial driver of instability.
In Could, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana for a uncommon assembly with senior Cuban officers, utilizing the go to to ship a message that the U.S. was ready to increase financial and safety engagement with Cuba if Havana “makes basic adjustments.”
However Ratcliffe additionally introduced alongside one of many operators who was concerned within the U.S. mission to seize then-Venezuelan chief Nicolás Maduro in January, making a degree of introducing the paramilitary chief to the Cubans because the one who had killed their folks in Venezuela, a number of folks conversant in the journey informed CBS Information.
Days after the go to, the Justice Division indicted 95-year-old former chief Raul Castro and 5 others on prices relationship again to the 1996 shootdown of two U.S. planes. That indictment has led to hypothesis that Castro can be arrested in an operation just like the snatch and seize of Maduro. A number of sources informed CBS Information that the choice can be for the Castro household to depart the island of their very own accord, and nodded to the Trump administration’s conferences with Castro’s grandnephew Raulito.
The administration’s confrontation with Cuba didn’t emerge in a single day. Over the previous 18 months, the White Home has steadily dismantled the restricted engagement pursued below former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama and changed it with a marketing campaign of financial, diplomatic and authorized stress that has remoted Havana and disadvantaged its safety equipment of income in an effort to power political change.
Cuba coverage since Trump’s return to workplace
Hours after returning to workplace in January 2025, Mr. Trump reversed one in every of Biden’s ultimate international coverage selections by restoring Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, a transfer that once more restricted Cuba’s entry to worldwide finance and signaled a return to the “most stress” technique of Mr. Trump’s first time period.
The Trump administration expanded that method when Rubio reinstated restrictions on enterprise transactions with Cuba’s military-controlled conglomerate, GAESA, arguing that the armed forces—not Cuba’s non-public sector—management a lot of the island’s hard-currency financial system. Weeks later, the State Division broadened visa restrictions focusing on Cuba’s abroad medical missions, accusing Havana of exploiting medical doctors and nurses by means of a state-run labor export system that Cuban officers insist is voluntary.
Deputy International Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio informed The Related Press in June that the Trump administration was attempting to discredit 1000’s of Cuban medical doctors working all over the world whereas additionally chopping off a important supply of earnings to the island nation.
Regardless of rising tensions, restricted cooperation continued, together with Cuba’s acceptance of U.S. deportation flights below present migration agreements. By mid-2025, the Trump administration formalized its method by means of a brand new Nationwide Safety Presidential Memorandum that expanded restrictions on journey, remittances and monetary transactions, whereas strengthening enforcement of the embargo.
The marketing campaign escalated additional earlier this 12 months when Mr. Trump declared Cuba an “uncommon and extraordinary risk” and prolonged sanctions to international governments and firms supplying the island with oil. Extra actions included sanctions on senior Cuban officers, and penalties focusing on Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and different high figures.
These measures coincided with a worsening financial disaster in Cuba, marked by gas shortages, blackouts and protests. Cuban officers blamed U.S. sanctions, whereas the Trump administration pointed to inner mismanagement.
