标签： South America

Six months after Rodrigo Paz took office as Bolivia’s president, the South American nation is grappling with its most severe political and humanitarian crisis in decades, as nationwide protests and coordinated road blockades have left the country’s administrative capital La Paz effectively under siege. What began as scattered demands from disparate labor and social groups has evolved into a full-scale movement calling for Paz’s resignation, amplified by the shadow of influential former president Evo Morales, who is currently evading arrest on sexual assault charges.

The unrest has stretched into its third week, led by a coalition of Bolivia’s largest labor union, the Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB), peasant unions, and mining groups. The sustained road closures have gutted local markets in La Paz, drained critical oxygen supplies at the capital’s hospitals, and already claimed at least three lives: emergency response vehicles were blocked from reaching medical facilities, leaving patients without urgent care. On Monday, clashes broke out between police and Morales supporters who joined the mass mobilization in the capital, intensifying pressure on a beleaguered administration that holds no legislative majority and lacks a cohesive, nationwide political party structure.

For Paz, a business-friendly centrist who won office last year as part of a broader regional wave of conservative electoral gains, the uprising represents the existential threat of his young presidency. Despite his warning Friday that “Those seeking to destroy democracy will go to jail,” blockades have since expanded to cover nearly the entire country, leaving more than 5,000 vehicles stranded on national highways and draining the national economy of an estimated $50 million every single day, according to local business associations.

The demands driving the protest are varied across participating groups. The COB initially called for significant wage hikes, while peasant groups have demanded a consistent, affordable supply of gasoline. Miners are pushing for expanded access to untapped mining territories, and public school teachers are conducting separate negotiations for salary increases. Presidential spokesperson José Luis Gálvez argues that most of these demands have already been addressed responsibly in line with Bolivia’s current economic constraints, claiming “dark forces” aligned with Morales are deliberately destabilizing the elected government.

Paz has repeatedly emphasized that he inherited a “bankrupt state” from the previous government led by Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism (MAS). His critics, however, decry his slow, ineffective response to a national crisis that has seen annual inflation climb near 20% and persistent fuel shortages – the worst economic downturn the country has faced in 40 years. A damaging early controversy, dubbed the “junk gasoline” scandal, further eroded public trust: the government imported low-quality fuel that damaged thousands of vehicles, sparking initial transport strikes and forcing the resignation of two senior executives at the state-owned oil company.

Morales, who led the MAS government for 14 years before leaving office in 2019, has emerged as the most high-profile figure behind the current unrest, organizing the latest mass march from his remote hideout in the Bolivian tropics. The former president has evaded an arrest warrant for 18 months stemming from allegations that he sexually abused a 15-year-old girl, charges he dismisses as politically motivated fabrication. In a recent post on social media platform X, Morales pushed back against claims he has lost his political influence, saying, “The government and the right wing claim that I am a political corpse and that I lack the ability to mobilize anyone, yet they continue to blame me. As long as structural demands — such as those concerning fuel, food and inflation — remain unaddressed, the uprising will not be quelled.” Most independent political analysts, however, argue Morales no longer holds the broad popular support he once commanded, and is instead stoking unrest primarily to distract from his legal troubles and avoid imprisonment.

The collapse of the MAS, which governed Bolivia for 20 years before splitting into factions led by Morales and former president Luis Arce, left Bolivia’s political landscape deeply fragmented, with no single party holding a clear governing majority. Paz’s surprise electoral victory last year quickly unraveled when his own political vehicle, the Christian Democratic Party, fractured soon after he took office. Compounding his governing challenges, Paz is also locked in a public, bitter feud with his own vice president, former police officer Edman Lara.

Early in his term, Paz positioned himself as a reformer, moving quickly to end the country’s international isolation that marked the MAS era and court foreign investment and loans. While he secured multiple pledges of international financial support, most of those funds have yet to materialize in Bolivian coffers. His first major domestic policy move, cutting long-standing fuel subsidies to stabilize public finances, did initially avoid mass unrest, but the subsequent low-quality fuel import scandal undermined what early goodwill he had with the public.

The crisis has drawn significant attention and response from across Latin America and the United States. Eight Latin American governments, ranging from Chile to Costa Rica, released a joint statement rejecting “any action aimed at destabilizing the democratic order.” Neighboring Argentina has stepped in to launch a week-long humanitarian airlift to bring critical supplies to Bolivia and alleviate widespread shortages of food and medical goods. The United States, which is rebuilding diplomatic and economic ties with Bolivia after decades of tense relations under Morales, has expressed public support for Paz’s efforts to “restore order for the peace, security and stability of the Bolivian people,” while also issuing a travel alert urging U.S. citizens in the country to exercise heightened caution amid ongoing unrest.

Just one month before U.S. special forces removed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro from power, a starkly different outcome played out for another former Latin American head of state: Juan Orlando Hernández, ex-president of Honduras, who had been convicted on nearly identical drug trafficking charges, walked free after receiving a full presidential pardon from former U.S. President Donald Trump.

Hernández had spent nearly four years behind bars at West Virginia’s maximum-security Hazelton Federal Correctional Institution, serving a 45-year sentence for his 2024 conviction on conspiracy charges linked to a transnational cocaine trafficking ring that moved 400 tonnes of the drug into the United States. Trump announced the pardon on his Truth Social platform on November 28, just 48 hours before Honduras’ general election. In the same post, Trump threatened to cut U.S. aid to Honduras unless his preferred candidate – Nasry Asfura of Hernández’s conservative National Party – won office. After a tightly contested race and delayed vote count, Asfura ultimately claimed victory.

In an exclusive interview with the BBC from his current residence in the U.S., Hernández described his sudden release as an extraordinary turnaround, saying he is “thankful and just trying to rebuild my life” after half a decade of incarceration. He has forcefully rejected claims that the pardon was granted for political reasons, aligned with Trump’s long-stated regional policy rooted in a reinterpretation of the Monroe Doctrine, which frames the Americas as Washington’s exclusive sphere of influence.

Most notably, Hernández pushed back hard against comparisons between his case and that of Maduro. Both right- and left-leaning sitting presidents were ultimately accused of large-scale drug trafficking, but Hernández secured Trump’s backing while Maduro faced forced removal. “My case is completely different,” he insisted, arguing that the entire criminal narrative around him was constructed by “leftist politicians in Honduras in tandem with left-wing politicians in Venezuela.” He claims upcoming evidence in Maduro’s upcoming U.S. drug trial will reveal that corrupt, drug-linked connections actually lie with members of Honduras’ left-wing Libre party, not his conservative administration.

The pardon granted Hernández unconditional legal clearance for all the charges he was convicted of, leading the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss his pending appeal as moot, since the conviction no longer carried legal weight. The Trump administration has framed the pardon as a correction of what it calls a wrongful prosecution carried out under the Joe Biden administration.

But for many Hondurans, the pardon does nothing to change their view of Hernández, who remains the most controversial Honduran president in recent memory, and was extradited to the U.S. in shackles to face trial. The decision sparked widespread protests both among Honduran communities in the U.S. and across Honduras, with demonstrators gathering outside the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa to condemn the move. “It’s a mockery for Honduras. This country doesn’t deserve that,” one local resident told Honduran television at the time.

At Hernández’s 2024 sentencing, U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel branded him a “two-faced politician” who leveraged his presidential authority and Honduras’ national security forces to protect drug traffickers who bribed his administration and funded his political career. Prosecutors alleged he turned Honduras into a narco-state, a particularly notable charge given the country’s long-standing role as a key transit point for South American cocaine bound for U.S. consumers.

Hernández has repeatedly denied all charges, pointing to a extradition law passed by his own administration – the same law that allowed his extradition to the U.S. for trial – as proof of his commitment to combating drug trafficking. He claims the law angered traffickers who ultimately coordinated to testify against him in retaliation.

Among the most damning evidence introduced at trial was an alleged quote attributed to Hernández, in which he reportedly told a senior Honduran trafficker: “We’re going to shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos.” Prosecutors also claimed he accepted a $1 million bribe from infamous Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Pressed on these claims, Hernández dismissed them as “false and ridiculous,” noting that El Chapo was already known to U.S. law enforcement at the time of the alleged meeting and was never in Honduras. “If you look at El Chapo’s trial, he doesn’t even mention Juan Orlando Hernández,” he told the BBC.

He also rejected another key piece of prosecution evidence: handwritten ledger entries from a major Honduran trafficker that purportedly documented bribes paid to both him and his younger brother, Tony Hernández, a former Honduran congressman who is currently serving a life sentence in the U.S. for drug trafficking. Tony Hernández’s conviction two years before his brother’s trial was a core part of the prosecution’s case against Juan Orlando; Tony was secretly recorded meeting with a top Honduran trafficker, who later testified against both siblings, alleging a $250,000 bribe was paid for protection while Juan Orlando was running for president. When asked what Tony was doing at that meeting, Hernández acknowledged: “I ask myself the same question, it was a grave mistake.”

Hernández has framed the entire case against him as a “political operation” built on the testimony of witnesses motivated by revenge, reduced sentences and entry into witness protection programs. He claims the prosecution was backed by an international alliance of left-wing politicians, including Democratic leaders in Washington, targeting him as a conservative leader. He and his family echo Trump’s description of the case as a “horrible witch-hunt” carried out by a politicized Biden-era Department of Justice, arguing the pardon merely corrected a gross injustice.

However, multiple current and former officials from the Department of Justice, State Department and Drug Enforcement Administration who worked on the case told the BBC their investigation was conducted with full due process and no improper political interference. They emphasized that the investigation into Hernández began during Trump’s first term, and was not a Biden administration initiative. Ana María Méndez Dardón, Central America director at the Washington Office on Latin America research organization, confirmed the years-long investigation was built on solid evidence. “The conviction had strong evidence that supported finding Juan Orlando Hernández guilty as a drug trafficker,” she said. “There were many witnesses which exposed linkages with other transnational drug organisations, including El Chapo Guzmán. It was huge. And it goes beyond Juan Orlando Hernández as a former president and a former convicted drug trafficker.”

Five months after his release, Hernández has still not been reunited with his family in person. He remains facing outstanding corruption and misappropriation of state funds charges in Honduras, and his wife Ana García Carías has been subject to U.S. visa restrictions since his 2020 arrest. Hernández says his top priority is securing permission to return to Honduras to be with his family, and he has ruled out any return to politics: “I’m not interested [in returning to politics]. My interest is in my family. I’ll never get back those four years I lost. Even today, I still haven’t seen them.” With his former National Party colleagues back in power in Tegucigalpa, however, Hernández is growing increasingly hopeful he will be allowed to return home. If he does, he will face the massive challenge of convincing the Honduran public, many of whom are frustrated by corrupt political elites avoiding accountability, of his version of events.

In the wake of a early-year Venezuelan military operation that resulted in the capture of embattled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the United States has steadily escalated diplomatic and economic pressure on Cuba, the Latin American nation long led by a communist government, according to reporting from multiple senior U.S. and international sources. The escalating standoff has put bilateral relations, already fraught after more than 60 years of enmity, at a critical turning point, with the U.S. Justice Department now moving toward a criminal indictment of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, a step that could send regional tensions soaring.

A potential indictment against Castro would require approval from a federal grand jury before it can be formally filed, three anonymous sources familiar with the ongoing investigation confirmed to the Associated Press. Three insiders noted that the preliminary charge is tied to Castro’s alleged role in the 1996 downing of two aircraft operated by Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based Cuban exile group, an incident that left four people dead. At the time of the shootdown, Castro served as Cuba’s defense minister, and he retains behind-the-scenes influence over Cuban governance despite stepping down from official office years ago. The Cuban government has not issued any public response to multiple requests for comment on the pending investigation, which was first reported by CBS.

This push for legal action comes amid a year of rapidly shifting friction between the Donald Trump administration and Havana, unfolding concurrently with a fragile, uneasy ceasefire in the U.S. military conflict with Iran. To contextualize the fast-moving developments, here is a chronological breakdown of key milestones in U.S.-Cuba relations over the first five months of the year:

On January 4, just 24 hours after the Venezuelan operation that removed Maduro from power, Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly warned that Cuba’s ruling government “is in a lot of trouble.” That same day, Trump renewed his long-stated public call for the United States to take control of Greenland, an autonomous territory owned by Denmark.

A week later on January 11, Trump issued a direct public ultimatum to Cuba, Maduro’s closest regional ally, as the island braced for potential domestic unrest following Maduro’s ousting. “Cuba needs to make a deal BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” Trump wrote in a social media post. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel pushed back sharply on the threat, arguing that the U.S. government, which he criticized for turning even human lives into a commercial transaction, has no moral standing to judge Cuba’s actions.

On January 30, Trump signed a new executive order imposing punitive tariffs on any goods imported from nations that export or supply petroleum to Cuba. Policy analysts widely agree the move will further damage Cuba’s already fragile economy, which has been strained by decades of U.S. sanctions.

On February 26, one day before the U.S. launched its full-scale military campaign against Iran, Trump unexpectedly announced that Washington was holding high-level talks with Cuban officials and floated the possibility of a “friendly takeover of Cuba,” though he offered no further details on what such a framework would entail. He confirmed Rubio was leading discussions with senior Cuban leadership, noting that the decades-long adversarial relationship between the two nations was approaching a pivotal moment. That same month, Raúl Guillermo “Raúlito” Rodríguez Castro, Raúl Castro’s grandson and a rising figure in Cuban politics, held a secret closed-door meeting with Rubio on the sidelines of the Caribbean Community summit in St. Kitts.

It was not until March 13 that Díaz-Canel publicly confirmed the backchannel talks, marking the first official acknowledgement of negotiations between the two governments amid a crippling national energy crisis. He said in a public statement that the discussions “were aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences between our two nations. International factors facilitated these exchanges.” Two weeks later on March 31, a Russian oil tanker that had been sanctioned by the U.S. docked in Cuba, delivering the first shipment of fuel to the island in three months.

Through early April, Díaz-Canel repeatedly rejected U.S. pressure to step down, stating in an April 12 interview with NBC’s *Meet the Press* that Washington has no legitimate justification for either a military invasion of Cuba or an attempt to remove his government from power. He warned that any U.S. military incursion would carry heavy costs and destabilize the entire Caribbean region. On April 16, during a mass rally in Havana marking the 65th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution’s formal declaration of socialism, Díaz-Canel called on the Cuban people to prepare for potential external aggression. “The moment is extremely challenging and calls upon us once again, as on April 16, 1961, to be ready to confront serious threats, including military aggression,” he told the crowd of hundreds of supporters. “We do not want it, but it is our duty to prepare to avoid it, and if it becomes inevitable, to defeat it.”

The following day, news broke of a new round of in-person talks between a U.S. delegation and senior Cuban government officials, marking a renewed push for diplomatic progress. This meeting was the third confirmed discussion between U.S. representatives and Rodríguez Castro, and a senior State Department official had met with the Cuban envoy earlier that month, a department official confirmed on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the negotiations. The official declined to name the members of the U.S. delegation, while a second U.S. official clarified that Rubio was not part of the delegation that traveled to Havana.

On April 23, Cuban Ambassador to the United Nations Ernesto Soberón Guzmán told the AP that Havana would reject any U.S. ultimatums requiring the release of political prisoners as a condition of continuing talks, stating that all internal Cuban matters related to detentions “are not on the negotiating table.” The release of political prisoners has been a core demand from U.S. negotiators in the first formal bilateral talks held on Cuban soil in a decade. A week later on April 28, Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic-sponsored bill that would have forced Trump to lift the U.S. energy blockade against Cuba without prior congressional approval. The vote underscored unified Republican support for Trump’s unilateral exercise of U.S. military and diplomatic pressure across multiple global hotspots, including Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba.

By May 7, senior U.S. officials moved to quell widespread speculation about an imminent U.S. military strike on Cuba, despite repeated public threats from Trump that “Cuba is next” and hints that U.S. warships deployed to the Middle East for the Iran conflict could sail to Cuba after concluding their operations. The sources, who are involved in the ongoing preliminary talks with Cuban authorities, also told the AP that U.S. negotiators are not optimistic that Havana will accept a sweeping U.S. offer that includes tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid, two years of free Starlink internet access for all Cubans, agricultural support, and infrastructure investment. The proposal comes with strict policy conditions that the Cuban government has rejected for decades, though officials noted that Havana has not yet formally turned down the offer even after new Trump administration sanctions took effect.

One week later on May 14, both U.S. and Cuban officials confirmed that CIA Director John Ratcliffe had traveled to Havana for high-level meetings with Cuban officials, including Rodríguez Castro. Ratcliffe held discussions with Rodríguez Castro, Cuban Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas, and the head of Cuba’s national intelligence service, covering intelligence cooperation, economic stability, and regional security issues. A CIA spokesperson later confirmed the meeting to the AP. A day after that visit, the AP first reported that the Justice Department was moving forward with plans to seek a grand jury indictment against Raúl Castro, the latest development in a rapidly shifting standoff between the two nations.

CARACAS, VENEZUELA – A solemn demonstration gripped Venezuela’s capital Monday, as dozens of protesters gathered to honor the life of Carmen Navas, an 82-year-old woman who died just days after finally learning her son had died in state custody nine months prior.

Mostly made up of college students, the crowd staged a temporary blockage of a major Caracas highway, directing sharp blame at the Venezuelan government for both deaths: that of 51-year-old Víctor Hugo Quero, whose detention has been widely categorized as politically motivated, and his elderly mother Navas, who spent months searching for answers about her son’s fate. Chanting calls for accountability, protesters carried a large banner emblazoned with Navas’ portrait, and unified in slogans declaring “They didn’t die; they were killed!” and “Justice for Carmen!”

Student leader Miguel Ángel Suárez summed up the public reaction to the pair’s deaths, noting, “What it stirs up in Venezuelans, in the Venezuelan youth, is rage.”

The timeline of the tragedy stretches back to January 2025, when Quero was first taken into state custody. For nine months, Navas waged a relentless search for information: she visited detention facilities, courthouses, and multiple government agencies, repeatedly demanding confirmation that her son was alive. It was only 10 days before her own death that Venezuela’s prisons agency released an official statement confirming Quero had died in July, after being hospitalized for an underlying gastrointestinal issue while in custody.

Per the government’s official account, Quero died of “acute respiratory failure secondary to pulmonary thromboembolism.” Officials attempted to justify the nine-month information blackout by claiming Quero had not provided emergency contact details for his family – a claim that has done little to quell public anger.

The incident has sparked immediate condemnation from across Venezuela’s political opposition, local and international human rights groups, and family members of other people detained on political charges in the country. According to Foro Penal, a prominent Venezuelan prisoners’ rights organization, more than 400 people are currently being held in the country for politically motivated reasons.

This development comes amid a string of ongoing political tensions across Latin America, with AP continuing full coverage of regional developments at its dedicated Latin America and the Caribbean hub.

LA PAZ, Bolivia – Six months into the tenure of Bolivia’s first conservative head of state in nearly 20 years, widespread protests led by supporters of influential former socialist president Evo Morales have plunged the Andean nation into political and social upheaval, sparked by the worst economic crisis the country has faced in a generation. What began as scattered demonstrations and road blockades more than two weeks ago has grown into the most formidable threat to the administration of President Rodrigo Paz, who took office last year amid a regional conservative wave linked to the former Trump administration in the United States.

After trekking for six days across the rugged Andes mountain range, thousands of Morales’ loyal supporters converged on the capital La Paz on Monday, where they faced off against lines of riot police. Many demonstrators carried visible dynamite sticks and slingshots, with repeated dynamite blasts echoing through downtown La Paz. In response, security forces deployed tear gas canisters that drifted over crowds united in chants of “Homeland or death, we will win!” and unified demands for Paz’s immediate resignation.

Paz inherited a 40-year economic low when he took office, and has faced mounting pressure to address persistent gaps: scarce fuel supplies, a crippling national budget deficit, and a critical shortage of U.S. dollars. The president has also had to navigate tensions with powerful Morales-aligned groups that have a long history of leveraging mass action to disrupt sitting governments. In recent days, Paz’s administration has secured tentative deals to end protests with striking miners and teacher unions, but core demonstrations led by Morales supporters have continued.

Road blockades, a longstanding protest tactic for Morales’ social movement bloc which claims to represent Bolivia’s majority rural Indigenous population, have paralyzed key transportation routes across the country over 16 days. Thousands of freight trucks have been stranded on major highways, triggering cascading shortages of food, fuel, and critical medical supplies in La Paz and other major urban centers.

Over the weekend, the Bolivian government deployed national police and military personnel to clear blockades. As of Monday, Bolivia’s public prosecutor’s office confirmed an unspecified number of injuries and at least 90 arrests stemming from the crackdown. Deputy Interior Minister Hernán Paredes defended the government’s actions Monday, stating that peaceful demonstrations are permitted, but authorities will respond forcefully to any criminal activity connected to the unrest.

Paz has directly accused Morales of orchestrating the current wave of unrest in a deliberate bid to destabilize and overthrow his democratically elected administration. Morales, for his part, has organized the massive march from a remote tropical hideout in Bolivia, where he has evaded an outstanding arrest warrant for 18 months. The arrest warrant stems from allegations stemming from his sexual relationship with a 15-year-old minor, charges Morales have repeatedly dismissed as politically motivated fabrication.

The unfolding crisis has drawn international attention and intervention. Last week, eight Latin American governments spanning from Argentina to Panama released a joint statement rejecting any action intended to destabilize Bolivia’s democratic order. The U.S. State Department added its condemnation of the unrest Sunday, confirming U.S. support for Paz’s government and its efforts to reestablish peace, security, and stability for the Bolivian people.

At Paz’s formal request, neighboring Argentina has launched a weeklong humanitarian airlift operation to ease the acute shortages of critical goods that are currently impacting Bolivian cities.

Tensions between the United States and Cuba have spiked dramatically in recent weeks, as a crippling domestic fuel crisis worsened by longstanding US trade restrictions collides with escalating US pressure on Havana’s communist government and sharp Cuban accusations of Washington plotting military aggression.

The crisis ignited after US news outlet Axios published a report on Sunday citing classified US intelligence claims that Cuba had acquired roughly 300 attack drones, and was weighing potential strikes on US targets in the region—including the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, US naval vessels operating nearby, and Key West in southern Florida. The report also repeated unconfirmed intelligence claims that Iranian military advisors are currently present in Havana, a development that echoes the growing role of Iranian drone technology in conflicts across the Middle East and Ukraine.

In an immediate and forceful response posted to social media, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez rejected the claims outright, accusing the US of systematically constructing a “fraudulent case” to justify both its ongoing harsh economic war against the Cuban people and potential future military intervention. Rodríguez emphasized that Havana “neither threatens nor desires war” with the US, but confirmed that Cuba is actively preparing defensive measures in response to rising external aggression. He also criticized major US media outlets for complicity in spreading the unsubstantiated claims, calling their coverage coordinated slander aligned with US government messaging.

Behind the escalating diplomatic row is a deepening humanitarian crisis inside Cuba, driven largely by an effective US oil blockade that has cut off nearly all of the island’s regular energy supplies. The last permitted Russian oil shipment to Cuba was exhausted earlier this month, and the loss of steady oil deliveries from former Venezuelan ally Nicolás Maduro—whose government fell to a US-backed raid earlier this year—has left the country with acute fuel shortages. Those shortages have triggered widespread rolling blackouts across the island that have disrupted critical services, including hospital operations, water pumping stations, public transportation networks, and municipal waste collection. When combined with already severe shortages of basic food and medicine, the energy crisis has sparked rare public protests against the Cuban government, which has overseen years of gradual infrastructure decline.

For years, Cuba weathered broad Western sanctions with the support of regional allies, most notably Maduro’s Venezuelan government, which previously supplied an estimated 35,000 barrels of oil per day to the island. That support ended after US forces captured Maduro in a raid on Caracas earlier this year, where the former Venezuelan leader is now set to stand trial in New York on federal drug trafficking charges. The Trump administration framed that raid as justified by a prior federal indictment against Maduro, a playbook that Cuban officials fear will be repeated against their own leadership. US media has also reported that the US is preparing a federal indictment against former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, who took power from his brother Fidel Castro—the revolutionary leader who overthrew the US-backed Cuban government in 1959.

The current escalation aligns with the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive posture toward Latin American left-wing governments, a marked shift from the policies of recent US predecessors. Trump has openly framed his regional policy as a revival of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which asserts US primacy over the Western Hemisphere, rebranding the policy the “Donroe Doctrine” and explicitly naming Cuba as the “next” target after Venezuela. Since capturing Maduro, Trump has repeatedly stated he expects to “take Cuba” in the near future.

In recent weeks, US military activity around Cuba has ramped up significantly: the *New York Times* reported Friday that surveillance flights over Cuban airspace have increased, and the US is planning a build-up of military forces in the Caribbean region. Just one day before the Axios report was published, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana for talks with Cuban officials, where he issued a demand that Cuba end its status as “a safe haven for adversaries in the western hemisphere.”

Cuba and the US have held quiet talks for months to resolve longstanding bilateral tensions, but those negotiations have been sidelined by the Trump administration’s escalating pressure campaign. With energy supplies exhausted and US military momentum growing, the island now faces the dual crisis of domestic humanitarian collapse and rising risk of foreign military intervention.