Monday there were reports that the Trump administration had decided Cuba's president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, had to go if any deal were going to be reached to make changes on the island. Late yesterday, President Diaz-Canel vowed resistance to any "external aggressor."
#EEUU amenaza públicamente a #Cuba, casi a diario, con derrocar por la fuerza el orden constitucional. Y usa un indignante pretexto: las duras limitaciones de la debilitada economía que ellos han agredido y pretendido aislar hace más de seis décadas.
— Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (@DiazCanelB) March 18, 2026
Pretenden y anuncian planes…
The US publicly threatens #Cuba, almost daily, with overthrowing the constitutional order by force. And it uses an outrageous pretext: the harsh limitations of the weakened economy that they have attacked and sought to isolate for more than six decades.
They intend and announce plans to seize the country, its resources, its properties, and even the very economy they seek to strangle to make us surrender.
Only in this way can the fierce economic war be explained, which is applied as collective punishment against the entire people.
In the face of the worst scenario, #Cuba is accompanied by a certainty: any external aggressor will clash with an impregnable resistance.
In other words, he's going to fight to keep his job. Well, he won't actually fight but he expects Cubans to fight on his behalf and to protect the country's communist system.
Meanwhile, Sec. of State Rubio is echoing Trump's call for a change of leadership.
Cubans survived for years on outside support, first from the former Soviet Union and in recent years from Venezuela, Rubio said: “They don’t get subsidies any more, so they’re in a lot of trouble. And the people in charge — they don’t know how to fix it. So they have to get new people in charge.” He and Trump spoke during an Oval Office visit by the prime minister of Ireland.
There are already signs that not everyone in Cuba is eager to defend the revolution. There have been nightly protests in Cuba which mostly amount to people walking around in the dark and banging pots and pans together to signal their displeasure with the government. That's all that most are willing to do because protesters in Cuba get beaten, arrested and can remain in jail for years for daring to protest. And yet, this week protesters in one city attacked a local communist party office and set furniture on fire.
🚨 BREAKING: Massive protests have erupted in Cuba as fuel shortages and rolling blackouts push the country deeper into crisis.
— And We Know©🇺🇸 (@andweknow) March 15, 2026
In Morón, protesters stormed a Communist Party office, dragged furniture into the street, and set it on fire while shouting for freedom. pic.twitter.com/ffl5LpQw8D
And the Washington Post reports there are fresh signs some Cubans have had enough of communism and are supporting Trump's attempts at regime change.
As the administration tries to gauge conditions on the ground, diplomats with the U.S. Embassy in Havana have been “cruising the capital’s streets in electric vehicles” to assess daily life, according to a State Department cable sent by the embassy Monday and reviewed by The Washington Post.
The cable reported wide disparities in the impact of the economic situation, adding that areas in the capital where “regime elites” and military officers live were clean and ordered, but in other areas basic services are lagging and the burning of piled-up trash has blanketed Havana with “pungent smoke.” Ordinary Cubans are forced to rely on their ingenuity, the cable said, noting that “severe gasoline and diesel shortages hinder municipal operations and supply chains as residents adapt by turning to mostly electric-powered mobility,” largely provided by China...
The embassy also said that there were “daily reports” of anti-Communist graffiti being written next to “Viva Trump” slogans, despite the official Cuban government line that the U.S. embargo was to blame for the economic situation.”
Cuba has kept people in line for years through fear. It will take some time before people feel confident to express their real feelings about the government in the streets. But a popular rejection of communism appears to be building. It's probably just a matter of time before the attacks on communism by regular people become more explicit and more frequent.
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