The United States Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, has warned that Washington does not rule out the option of military action in Cuba, while emphasizing that Havana "would do well to pay attention" to the "will" of the White House president, Donald Trump, to "assert the strategic prerogatives" of the North American country.
Hegseth has stressed before the press, during his official visit to Panama, that "as I have said before, and I believe you have seen what has happened in other cases, all options are on the table, including military ones," words spoken in the context of an event of the military coalition promoted by Washington against the cartels.
Immediately after, the Defense official insisted that the Caribbean island "would do well to pay attention to President Trump's will to assert U.S. strategic prerogatives." He then boasted about his country's position by stating that, in his opinion, "no one can compare to the United States," and added that "what foreign influence has been able to achieve in its hemisphere has been quite insignificant."
In this line, he mentioned several international actors by pointing out that "the Russians, Cubans, Iranians, and Venezuela... The way those countries have approached the United States and the Coalition against Cartels of the Americas (A3C) shows that they understand where the balance of power lies, especially in this hemisphere. And that, without a doubt, applies to Cuba," Hegseth emphasized.
It is worth remembering that, last June, Trump himself had already referred to a possible military operation in Cuba similar to those contemplated for Venezuela or Iran. However, he then defended a "flexible" stance regarding Havana. "The difference is that Venezuela has oil, Cuba does not. Cuba has good properties and a beautiful coast," the president pointed out, before assuring that the Cuban authorities have "a great desire" to dialogue with Washington.