Cuban officials said the Trump administration is making “increasingly implausible accusations” against the country as it pushes to justify, “without any excuse, a military attack against Cuba,” after an unnamed White House official told the news outlet Axios that the Cubans have been “discussing plans” to launch drones against the U.S.
“Cuba is the country under attack,” said the Cuban embassy in a statement, months into a ramped-up oil blockade by the U.S. that has left the island’s electric grid in a “critical state” and forced frequent rolling blackouts, causing a healthcare crisis with tens of thousands of people waiting for surgeries.
But in Axios’ article, the Trump administration official pushed the notion that the U.S., with its nearly $1 trillion-per-year military, could face attacks from the tiny Caribbean nation 90 miles south of Florida because officials there have been preparing defensive capabilities.
Axios reported that, according to classified intelligence it viewed, Cuba has acquired more than 300 drones and has been considering plans to attack the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, various U.S. military vessels, and Key West, Florida.
Cuba has been acquiring drones from Russia and Iran since 2023 and has sought more aid from Russia in recent months, according to the report. Intelligence intercepts have also shown Cuba is “trying to learn about how Iran has resisted us,” the official said, referring to Iran’s use of unmanned aircraft, its closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and its attacks on U.S. military outposts in West Asia in response to the U.S.-Israel war on Iran that began Feb. 28.
The Cuban embassy further responded with a reminder that “like any country, Cuba has the right to defend itself against external aggression.”
Like any country, Cuba has the right to defend itself against external aggression. It is called self-defense, and it is protected by International Law and the UN Charter.
Those from the US who seek the submission and, in fact, the destruction of the Cuban…
— Cuban Embassy in US (@EmbaCubaUS) May 17, 2026
“Those from the U.S. who seek the submission and, in fact, the destruction of the Cuban nation through military aggression and war, do not waste a single moment fabricating pretexts, creating and spreading falsehoods, and distorting as extraordinary the logical preparation required to face a potential aggression,” said the embassy.
Journalist José Luis Granados Ceja, based in Mexico City and covering Latin America for Drop Site News, emphasized that “Cuba has the right to self-defense.”
“It would arguably be wise for Cuba to incorporate a tool that has proven to be an extraordinarily effective weapon and a powerful tool of dissuasion as part of its self-defense strategy,” said Granados Ceja.
Axios said the classified intelligence “could become a pretext for U.S. military action” that President Donald Trump has expressed an interest in taking numerous times, before acknowledging toward the end of the article that “U.S. officials don’t believe Cuba is an imminent threat, or actively planning to attack American interests.”
Rather, the intelligence showed that Cuban officials “have been discussing drone warfare plans in case hostilities erupt as relations with the U.S. continue to deteriorate”—suggesting they could use drones in self-defense if attacked by the U.S.
.@Axios fabricates a “drone threat”, only to confess paragraphs later: “US officials don’t believe Cuba is actively planning to attack.”
This contradictory disinformation is a transparent, ludicrous pretext to justify US hostility.
We categorically reject these baseless smears. https://t.co/YPgwket1p6— Cuba in the UK (@EmbaCuba_UK) May 17, 2026
The reporting carried echoes of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s rationale for attacking Iran in February. Days after the war began Feb. 28, Rubio stunned legal experts by explaining that the U.S. had decided to wage war on Iran because it feared Iran would retaliate after Israel began attacking it.
“The imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us,” Rubio said.
The claim that Cuba’s reported preparations make the island a threat to U.S. security “is a lie—with purpose,” said David Adler, co-general coordinator of Progressive International.
Cuban drone attack with Iranian help? Now we know why Rubio has been hammering the message that Cuba is a threat and host to U.S. adversaries.
It reads like something out of a bad spy novel, but this regime-change propaganda represents a very real danger. https://t.co/bq1TAbLNt1
— José Luis Granados Ceja (@GranadosCeja) May 17, 2026
“Marco Rubio and his stenographers at Axios are manufacturing consent for the invasion of Cuba,” said Adler. “To fall for this flimsy propaganda is to fail the most basic test of civic literacy. And the stakes are millions of Cuban lives off our coast.”
Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, has long sought regime change in the socialist country.
Axios’ reporting came days after CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Cuba to pressure officials into complying with U.S. demands, likely including political and economic reforms, heightening fears that the U.S. could be planning a military attack unless the country complies.
White House officials also told CBS News on May 16 that the Department of Justice is preparing to criminally indict former Cuban President Raúl Castro for shooting down planes that belonged to a U.S. group that had flown into Cuba’s airspace in the 1990s. In January 2026, U.S. forces invaded Venezuela and abducted President Nicolás Maduro, bringing him to the U.S. where he was charged with drug trafficking; he pleaded not guilty.
Former Obama administration staffer and Pod Save America co-host Tommy Vietor said May 17 that “lots of signals pointing towards an imminent U.S. regime change operation against Cuba.”
“The latest,” he said of the Axios article, “is this blatant effort to launder a pretext for war through the media.”
Source: Common Dreams
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