MEXICO CITY — In recent days, the U.S. Navy stationed an aircraft carrier off the coast of Cuba, the White House expanded sanctions on Havana leaders and federal prosecutors charged former Cuban President Raúl Castro with murder.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking to reporters, said what is becoming obvious to many: that the likelihood of a “peaceful, negotiated agreement” with Cuba's communist government “is not high.”
Months after a severe oil blockade that has caused widespread blackouts on the island, the Trump administration has further intensified its pressure campaign against Havana, raising questions about whether Cuba will be the next US target after Venezuela and Iran. The United States overthrew Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January and a month later killed Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Cuban officials, who criticized the accusation against Castro as “a political action” to justify an invasion, say they are preparing for war.
Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Cuba's deputy foreign minister, said that while the country hopes to avoid conflict, it is tightening its defenses.
“We would be naïve” if we didn't, he said.
For weeks, Cuba has been circulating a pamphlet to its citizens – a “Family Guide to Protection from Military Aggression” – that says the United States “threatens to launch a military assault and destroy our society with the goal of perpetuating capitalism… and annihilating the dream of our Commander in Chief, Fidel Castro.”
The document instructs families to pack survival kits, seek shelter if they hear air raid sirens, and shares first aid instructions for things like making a tourniquet. “If the enemy attacks,” it reads, “our Revolution will defend itself until victory is achieved and the aggressor is expelled.”
Cubans watch events anxiously, but are focused on the daily task of surviving.
An April crude shipment – one of the only oil deliveries this year – has run out, and Cuba's Minister of Energy and Mines announced this week that the country lacks fuel to power its aging electrical grid and relies on domestic oil and solar panels. “We have no more reserves,” he said.
The energy crisis has plunged much of the country into darkness, with many homes receiving only a few hours of electricity a day. Food becomes scarce or rots due to lack of refrigeration. Some schools are closed. Cars and buses are stopped. Hospitals lack power for ventilators.
“Cuba is in a spiral,” said Michel Fernández Pérez, of the Florida-based nongovernmental organization Cuba Próxima. “It's a country on the brink of a terminal crisis. People don't know what's going to happen next and most have almost no hope that things will really get better.”
The United States and Cuba have been engaged in talks for months, with U.S. officials demanding an overhaul of the state economy and the island's one-party political system. Last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana for talks.
But Cuban leaders do not seem willing to make major concessions. And they have said publicly that they do not believe the United States is acting in good faith.
“It obviously doesn't help the climate of dialogue and trust that every other day there are statements like: 'We are ready to take over Cuba,'” Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations told the New York Times this week. “War rhetoric doesn't help.”
The indictment against Castro, the 94-year-old brother of the late revolutionary leader Fidel, is perhaps the most aggressive move yet by the United States.
Castro, who served as defense minister in the 1990s, was accused of ordering the downing in 1996 of two planes over Cuban territory piloted by members of Brothers to the Rescue, a group of Florida exiles opposed to the Castro regime. Four people died. Public records show that Cuban officials have said they attacked the planes only after trying to stop the flights through secondary diplomatic channels.
In announcing the charges in Miami on Wednesday, acting prosecutor. Gen. Todd Blanche praised the case as an important step toward justice and said he believed Castro would eventually end up in the United States for his day in court. “There was an arrest warrant against him,” he said. “So we hope he shows up here, of his own free will or otherwise.”
But it is still unclear what “another way” means, and Blanche said it was a matter for the Defense and State departments.
Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, a progressive think tank, said President Trump appears to be on a warpath.
“Once again it is leading us into conflict for no good reason,” Duss said, and in a nod to operations in Venezuela and Iran, he added that U.S. officials “have not offered any plausible argument that Cuba or any of the three countries pose a threat.”
In March, Trump had said he would have “the honor of taking Cuba” and added: “I can do whatever I want with it.” On Thursday, he denied that his administration was seeking to intimidate Havana when asked about the positioning of the USS Nimitz near Cuba.
“Not at all,” Trump told reporters during an event in the Oval Office.
He then characterized Cuba as a “failed country” and said that for “humanitarian reasons” his administration was seeking to “help them.”
“Other presidents have looked at this for 50, 60 years, doing something,” he said. “And it looks like I'll be the one to do it.”
A recent poll by El Toque, a Cuban news site, found that 56% of the island's residents support a US military intervention.
“That is the level of desperation that currently affects the Cuban people,” said Fernández, who compared ordinary Cubans to “hostages trapped between two powers: the illegitimate and dictatorial authority of the Cuban government and the United States, a global power that seeks to impose its will without regard for human rights.”
Also on Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld lawsuits by U.S. companies whose properties were confiscated during the Cuban revolution. The lawsuits do not seek compensation from Cuba, but create another headache for the government by putting pressure on four cruise lines sued for using the Port of Havana.
In Cuba, anger against the government has been growing over blackouts and decades of mismanagement of the economy. But sporadic protests have been quickly repressed.
The government, in a show of force, is organizing a large protest to defend Castro on Havana's waterfront on Friday.
Times Editor Ana Ceballos contributed to this report from Washington.
