Is the Pentagon Preparing for Military Action in Cuba?
By Sarah Anderson"We may stop by Cuba after we’re finished with this," President Donald Trump said on Monday. "This" meaning the conflict in Iran.
If I had a dollar for every time the president said something about what's coming in Cuba over the last three months, I'd have enough cash to buy a plane ticket to Washington, D.C., so I could stand outside the State Department, hold a boombox over my head, and beg Marco Rubio to give me an interview on the topic.
And if I had a dollar for every "anonymous sources" exclusive the MSM put out about what the president plans to do in Cuba, I'd have enough money to fly back home when the State Department inevitably takes out a restraining order. Sigh.
I kid, but those of you who read me regularly know how I feel about anonymous sources, especially when it comes to big stories in the Western Hemisphere. While Cuba is a little sexier, the United States mainstream media spent so much time ignoring Latin American and the Caribbean that when it finally caught on to the fact that something was going on with Venezuela, it fell all over itself to be right about impending "war" and what Trump and Rubio had planned, and ultimately, 99% of it was wrong.
As I've said in the past, up until January 3, when we swooped in and captured and arrested Nicolás Maduro, most MSM journalists probably thought Venezuela was a fruity cocktail they could order at their favorite restaurants. Heck, even some members of congress — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — can't find the country on a map. But I digress.
So, back to my point. On Wednesday, a couple of media outlets — something called Zeteo and the oh-so-reliable USA Today — reported that the Pentagon is preparing for military action in Cuba.
Zeteo, which is a left-wing outlet I hadn't heard of until today, says, "In recent days, according to two sources familiar with the situation and another person briefed on it, officials at the Pentagon and elsewhere in the U.S. government were quietly given a new directive that came straight from the Trump White House. The message: ramp up your preparations for possible military operations against Cuba."
USA Today's headline promises an exclusive, and the article says, "Military planning for a possible Pentagon-led operation in Cuba is quietly ramping up, in case President Donald Trump gives an order to intervene there, USA TODAY has learned. Two sources familiar with the order spoke to USA TODAY on condition of anonymity because they're not authorized to speak to media."
USA Today reached out to the Pentagon, and it replied with a generic statement, claiming "it plans for a range of contingencies and remains prepared to execute the president’s orders as directed."
So, is it true? Is the Pentagon ramping up preparations for military action in Cuba?
Possibly. There's no way to know. I don't know. You don't know. Zeteo doesn't really know. USA Today doesn't really know. I'm betting these "anonymous sources" don't really know either. As a matter of fact, USA Today's reporting of what's to come in Cuba has been pretty inaccurate in recent months and shot down by numerous members of Congress and Rubio himself.
There's a small chance that information was leaked on purpose after Cuba's "president," Miguel Díaz-Canel, appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday and puffed out his chest, telling Trump and Rubio to "come at me, bro," promising that the Cuban people will die for the regime or something like that, while Kristen Welker fangirled about what an "honor" it was to speak to him. Why not put something out there to make him think we're coming for him, Maduro-style, regardless of whether we are or not? It'd make me nervous.
But I kind of doubt that's what this is. I'm sure the Pentagon does have many contingencies in place — Trump always says all options are on the table — but I sincerely doubt these anonymous sources know for sure. These outlets are trying to paint the situations in Cuba and Venezuela as the same, and they're not. For example, Díaz-Canel is not wanted in the U.S. like Maduro was, nor are the Castros. They're also trying to paint Trump as some sort of supervillain.
Meanwhile, opposition leader María Corina Machado, an actual Venezuelan, has been doing press in Europe this week, and said Donald Trump "is the only world leader who has done things to enable the freedom of Venezuela." She also suggested that Rubio "is one of the people who best understands the dynamics in Latin America."
Anyway, I wasn't even going to dignify this with an article — I'm working on a more important story for my "Tracking China in the Americas" column — but as is inevitable, I'm starting to see other conservatives report this "news" as if it's 100% verified fact, and I wanted to get ahead of it.
The fact is that something is coming in Cuba. We don't know what. We don't know when. I'm not even sure the Trump administration knows that information yet. But it is coming. And Trump and Rubio will let us know when it does.
As Rubio said a couple of weeks ago, "Any reporting on Cuba that you didn’t get from me or the President is a liar. Because we're the only people working on it. Okay. I’m just warning you guys, all these sources that are pitching you on Cuba don’t know jack. Okay? They’re not in the mix. I promise you, they don’t know what the hell is happening."
P.S. As I'm writing this, the Department of War has announced a press conference for 8 a.m. on Thursday regarding Iran. If they happen to say anything about Cuba, then I'll buy it, but for now, I wait.
ANNOUNCEMENT: pic.twitter.com/t0i56pPbcS
— Department of War 🇺🇸 (@DeptofWar) April 16, 2026
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