22OCT

Trump doubts US needs military for Cuba

2 min read

17:12UTC

Donald Trump told the UN that freedom will be coming to Cuba, prompting a Cuban walkout, then said on 26 September he did not think the US would need the military.

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Key takeaway

Trump said on 26 September he did not think the US would need the military in Cuba.

Donald Trump told the UN General Assembly in late September that "freedom will be coming" to Cuba, and the Cuban delegation walked out⁠¹. On 26 September he said: "I don't think we'll need the military". CBS News had reported in July that Pentagon planners reviewed contingency options for possible action against Cuba, with officials calling an operation unlikely at the time.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Donald Trump, the US president, spoke at the United Nations in September and said that freedom will be coming to Cuba, meaning an end to its communist government. Cuba's diplomats walked out of the hall in protest. A few days later he said he did not think the US would need to use its military to bring that about. The US is instead pressing Cuba with sanctions on its banks and companies and by stopping fuel shipments. Cuba's government says cutting off fuel is itself an attack on its people.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

The administration has built its Cuba campaign on instruments that need no congressional vote: designations under EO 14404, the 30 September CACR rule and Coast Guard interdictions. Each tightens pressure without the political cost of military action.

Cuba's economy is under heavy strain, with tourism down sharply and the grid failing repeatedly. That gives Washington reason to expect collapse from within.

CBS reported in July that Pentagon planners had reviewed military options, so Trump's remark marks a public choice between tracks, not the absence of one.

Escalation

Mixed. Trump's 26 September remark lowers the stated likelihood of US military action, while the financial and maritime measures in the same weeks raise economic pressure.

What could happen next?

Meaning
Washington is signalling that sanctions and interdiction, not force, are its chosen route to change in Havana.
Risk
If economic pressure does not produce change, the military options reported in July could return to the agenda.

Source Landscape

This story draws on centre-left-leaning sources from Qatar

Qatar

Primary parallel: In 1992 Congressman Robert Torricelli predicted that his Cuban Democracy Act, which tightened the embargo as Soviet aid vanished, would bring Fidel Castro down within weeks. The government survived the deepest economic crisis in its history, the Special Period, by rationing and limited reform.

Counter-parallel: In October 1983 Ronald Reagan sent US forces into Grenada days after a coup within its socialist government. There Washington chose force against a small Caribbean state at once, with no long campaign of economic pressure first.

Consensus view: Analysts in the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) read the administration's Cuba policy as pressure through fuel and finance standing in for force. Trump's remark fits that model: a government short of electricity, dollars and banking channels is expected to give way without a landing, which is why the Coast Guard and OFAC carry the campaign rather than the Pentagon.

Counter-view: Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío told C-SPAN on 27 September that withholding fuel for nine months amounts to genocide, and that Cuba must prepare its citizens for possible US military action. Havana treats the denial of fuel as warfare by other means, so a promise not to use the military does not, on its account, lower the threat.

Key tension: Whether economic pressure alone produces the political change Trump predicts, or whether the contingency planning reported in July returns if it does not.

Sources:Al Jazeera

Mentions:Donald Trump →UN General Assembly →Cuba →CBS News →Havana →Pentagon →Carlos Fernández de Cossío →United Nations →Washington →OFAC →Center for Strategic and International Studies →Ronald Reagan →Grenada →

First Reported In

Update #15 · Cuba opens oilfields, US cuts dollar routes

Al Jazeera· 22 Oct 2026

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Different Perspectives

UN General Assembly

The Assembly passed last year's resolution against the US embargo by 165 votes to 7, with 12 abstentions, and votes again on 28 October. That count is the baseline against which Havana's lobbying claims and Washington's pressure will be measured.

Mexican Navy (Secretaría de Marina)

A Mexican Navy team inspected Grace at Progreso and found fuel in its ballast tanks, according to the US Coast Guard. The account of Mexico's role comes from Washington; the Mexican government's own position on the stop is not on record in the sources reviewed.

Pedro Monreal, independent Cuban economist

Monreal says the gazette contains no rule for the exchange-house licence ADT 64 received, so nobody knows how a second firm could apply. He says a representative rate would need at least ten houses in five provinces, Havana included.

Prisoners Defenders and OCDH (Madrid-based exile monitors)

Prisoners Defenders counted a record 1,351 political prisoners at the end of September, and OCDH logged at least 344 repressive actions that month. OCDH asked the European Union on 11 September to investigate possible trafficking in Cuba's medical brigade in Italy.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier

Uthmeier announced a no-bond state warrant for Raúl Castro on 19 October over the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown, after reopening the state investigation last year. The four men killed flew for a Miami exile group, and the warrant restricts Castro's travel rather than reaching him in Cuba.

Cuban government (Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla)

Rodríguez said on 21 October that Washington is pressing governments to abstain or leave the hall in the 28 October UN vote and called Florida's Raúl Castro warrant worthless. Havana is presenting its October oil and trade rules as openings and the US measures as an energy blockade.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.