Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel (C) takes part in the “Anti-Imperialist” protest in front of the US Embassy against the US incursion in Venezuela, where 32 Cuban soldiers lost their lives, in Havana on January 16, 2026. (Photo by Yamil Lage/ POOL / AFP via Getty Images)
After the US president again threatened invasion, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez said he would only “find a people determined to defend sovereignty and independence in every inch of the national territory.”
President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez of Cuba on Saturday responded with stark and defiant words to the latest attacks coming from US President Donald Trump, who on Friday signed a new executive order authorizing even more aggressive sanctions against the island nation and later threatened to invade the country.
“The President of the United States escalates his threats of military aggression against Cuba to a dangerous and unprecedented scale,” said Díaz-Canel in a statement. “The international community must take note and, together with the people of the United States, determine whether such a drastic criminal act will be allowed to satisfy the interests of a small but wealthy and influential group, driven by desires for revenge and domination.”
“No aggressor, no matter how powerful, will find surrender in Cuba,” he added. If Trump were to attack the country, the Cuban president said, “he will find a people determined to defend sovereignty and independence in every inch of the national territory.”
“What does ‘No Kings’ mean when one man can snap his fingers and kill innocent Cubans on a whim?”
In addition “to blocking the US assets of foreign individuals and entities operating in Cuba’s energy, defense, financial services, metals, mining, and security sectors, as well as anyone acting on behalf of the Cuban government,” as Drop Site News notes, Friday’s executive order also “authorizes sanctions on foreign financial institutions that conduct significant transactions with designated Cuban entities, potentially cutting them off from US correspondent banking.”
As such, the outlet continued, the new sanctions “could further isolate Cuba from the international financial system, limit foreign investment, and exacerbate the island’s already severely restricted access to medicine, food imports, and basic goods.”
In addition to the signed executive order, Trump said during a Friday campaign-style event in Florida that the US “will be taking [Cuba] over almost immediately.”
Upon their return from Iran, where Trump has waged a deeply unpopular war, the US president told the crowd, “We’ll have maybe the USS Lincoln [aircraft carrier] come in offshore, and they’ll give up.”
In a floor speech earlier this week, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) rebuked the Trump administration for the humanitarian disaster it has unleashed in Cuba, which follows what he described as a “failed” policy towards the island country over decades.
As Trump ramps up his threats of war against Cuba, we must understand what led us to this point: 65 years of a bankrupt Cuba policy.
If we want to avoid war with Cuba, we must rein in this lawless President & learn from the failed, bipartisan policies that led us to this point. pic.twitter.com/H9MqviSe6d
— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) April 30, 2026
“If we want to avoid war with Cuba,” said Van Hollen, “we must rein in this lawless president and learn from the failed, bipartisan policies that led us to this point.”
David Adler, the co-general coordinator of Progressive International, condemned the relative silence of US opponents to the Trump administration, who have not done, in his mind, nearly enough to challenge the blockade or condemn the administration’s repeated and ongoing threats to invade the island nation or overthrow its government.
“ Donald Trump has given [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio the green light to annihilate a peaceful nation and its people—and the ‘resistance’ is silent,” said Adler. “What does ‘No Kings’ mean when one man can snap his fingers and kill innocent Cubans on a whim?”
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Pope Leo XIV leads his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Squarein Vatican City on April 8, 2026. (Photo by Maria Grazia Picciarella/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The US “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world,” a top official told the Vatican’s US representative. “The Catholic Church had better take its side.”
Pope Leo, the first American to be named the head of the worldwide Catholic Church, has spoken out against President Donald Trump’s policies frequently this year as the US has invaded Venezuela and Iran and threatened Cuba’s 10 million people with an oil blockade that has crippled the island’s economy and healthcare system—and according to new reports, his criticism has followed a warning from a Pentagon official who demanded the Vatican take the “side” of the White House in foreign disputes.
The Free Press originally reported this week that after the pope’s “State of the World” address on January 9, US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby called Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s US diplomatic representative, to Washington.
Colby told Pierre that the US “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world.”
“The Catholic Church had better take its side,” he said, according to The Free Press.
Another Pentagon official alluded to the Avignon papacy, a period in the 14th century in which the French monarchy ordered an attack on Pope Boniface VIII and forced seven successive popes to relocate from Rome to Avignon in France.
According to Christopher Hale of the Substack blog Letters From Leo, who independently confirmed the meeting had taken place, Vatican officials took the remarks about the Avignon papacy as “a threat to use military force against the Holy See.”
“Bringing up the Avignon papacy as a threat is truly insane,” said progressive organizer Jonathan Cohn.
The pope is unlikely to visit the US during Trump’s presidency as a result of the meeting, Hale reported. Pope Leo rejected an invitation to the White House for the United States’ 250th anniversary celebration on July 4, and is reportedly planning to visit the island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean that day, where thousands of North African immigrants have arrived as they attempt to reach Europe.
The pope, reported Hale, “is too deliberate a man to have chosen that date by accident.”
The Pentagon meeting took place days after Pope Leo angered the Trump administration, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, by lamenting the fact that “a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force, by either individuals or groups of allies.”
In the speech that enraged Pete Hegseth and top Pentagon officials, Pope Leo XIV said: “A diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force.”
“War is back in vogue, and a zeal for war is spreading.
He made the comments days after the US invaded Venezuela, killing dozens of people and abducting President Nicolás Maduro, and as the US continued its boat bombing campaign that began last year in Latin America.
Since then, the pope has made numerous statements in recent weeks as the US joined Israel in bombing Iran and Trump issued increasingly bellicose threats to attack the country’s population of 93 million people.
He said on Tuesday, hours before a two-week ceasefire was reached between the US, Iran, and Israel, that Trump’s threat to wipe out the “whole civilization” of Iran was “truly unacceptable.”
“There are certainly issues of international law here, but even more, it is a moral question concerning the good of the people as a whole, in its entirety,” said Pope Leo. “Let’s look for solutions in a peaceful way.”
He also appeared to reject a call from Hegseth last month when the defense secretary asked Americans to pray for US troops in Iran “in the name of Jesus Christ.”
“Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” said the Pope in his homily on Palm Sunday days later. “He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.’”
The New Republic reported that prior to the January meeting Pierre was called to, there were no public records of meetings between the Vatican and Pentagon officials, “let alone an instance in which the world power suggested that it could force the Bishop of Rome into captivity.”
When asked about the meeting on Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance—a Catholic convert—at first claimed not to know who the Vatican’s US representative was, before saying the reported was “uncorroborated.”
BREAKING: JD Vance initially says he doesn't know who Cardinal Christophe Pierre is — until recently Pope Leo XIV’s ambassador to the United States — then, once reminded, declines to comment on the Pentagon's January meeting with the cardinal or on the ”bitter lecture” Under… pic.twitter.com/Qknnuh0wxv
The Defense Department also denied The Free Press’ account of the meeting, saying the characterization was “highly exaggerated and distorted.”
Writer Pedro Gonzalez noted that former Trump adviser Steve Bannon discussed strategies to “take down” the late Pope Frances with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to files on Epstein that were released by the Department of Justice.
“It is for this and other reasons that people take seriously the report about the Trump-Vance administration threatening Pope Leo to bend the knee or else,” said Gonzalez. “These people are insane. Their hunger for power is bottomless. Moral resistance will be met with intimidation and threats, whether it’s in America or in Rome.”
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Explosions erupt following strikes at Tehran Oil Refinery in Tehran on March 7, 2026. (Photo by Atta Kenare/ AFP via Getty Images)
It’s a dirty business that’s ruining the planet and jeopardizing our futures in countless ways, of which this despicable war in Iran is just the latest and highest profile.
Oil is both a major driver of this war and, for now at least, the primary way Americans are feeling its effects. The war drives home the grim reality that we are hostage to this toxic ooze that burns dirty, poisons wildlife, causes cancer, and accelerates climate change. The necessity to wean ourselves off of it, as quickly and completely as possible, has never been more apparent.
An Oil Crisis of Trump’s Own Making
Even Trump is subservient to the whims and demands of the oil economy. Since he started the war, he’s tried desperately to control the chaotic effect his bombing campaign has had on global oil markets. Trump may not be bright, but he understands one very basic political reality: He can cover up the Epstein files, get away with all manner of fraud and graft, and even commit war crimes—but he cannot let the price of gas get too high.
Oil makes all our lives dirtier and less safe. Fighting wars so we can dig it up until it’s all gone—or until we are—is as stupid, reckless, and self-destructive a thing as any animal has ever done.
From a strategic perspective, then, the focal point of the war quickly became the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passageway out of the Persian Gulf that pinches down between southern Iran and the Omani Musandam Peninsula. The strait is an essential shipping lane for 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas (LNG), as well as a third of the global fertilizer trade. With essentially uncontested control of the strait, Iran has closed it to “enemy-linked” ships. Iran insists that non-hostile ships pay a toll in Chinese yuan, which is an attempt to undermine the supremacy of the petrodollar.
The crisis at the Strait of Hormuz is entirely of Trump’s own making, and has triggered an erratic series of threats, pleas, lies, and bargaining from him as he tries to keep his stupid war from grinding the global economy to a halt. Trump has even threatened to deploy the US Navy to escort ships through the strait. One has to wonder how sailors feel about being offered up as bodyguards for Qatari tankers, thrown into a situation where they would be wide open for Iranian drone and missile attacks.
Trump the Oil Imperialist
Trump sees this war almost entirely through the lens of oil. As part of alleged ceasefire negotiations, Trump claimed Iran “gave us a present… worth a tremendous amount of money… it was oil-and-gas related.” That turned out to be Iran allowing 10 oil ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump also implied that those high gas prices causing so many people pain at the pump are actually good for the country. Because the US is a net exporter of oil, Trump said, “When oil prices go up, we make a lot of money”—perhaps forgetting that most Americans do not own oil companies.
Compare Trump’s constant talk of oil with the Bush administration’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2003-06, calling Iraq a war for oil was considered a conspiracy theory. Dissidents and war critics were driven out of polite conversations for even bringing it up. Insinuating that the troops would ever be deployed for such an ignoble purpose was treated as beyond the pale, if not treasonous, by Fox News and the Bush White House.
This time, there’s next to no pretense of nobility in Trump’s war. While lots of motivations, with varying degrees of believability and logic, have been given—ranging from halting Iran’s nuclear capabilities to ushering in Armageddon—the Trump administration is perfectly open about the centrality of oil to their war mission. In a way, it’s almost refreshing to hear a politician speak so forwardly about their imperialist intent, even if it does lay bare the villainy of the US empire.
In addition to the Strait of Hormuz, Trump is focused on Kharg Island, a small island in the Persian Gulf that handles up to 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is among the most bloodthirsty war hawks on the planet, encouraged Trump to seize Kharg Island (and compared such an operation to Iwo Jima, in which 7,000 Marines died—no skin off Lindsey Graham’s back). Trump himself then said, while discussing his military options, “My favorite thing is to take the oil in Iran.”
Trump has long openly fantasized about using the military to conquer oil fields. In 2013, before his political career really started, he tweeted, “I still can’t believe we left Iraq without the oil,” and he repeated this urge to plunder Iraq’s oil during the 2016 election. To Trump, this is just how the world works: If your guns and bombs make bigger holes and explosions, you get to just take whatever you want, anywhere in the world. There is no right, no wrong, no law.
This also tracks with how Trump has handled the oil industry in Venezuela. Last year, Trump started claiming that Venezuela had stolen, or “unilaterally seized and sold American oil.” This claim was a reference to Venezuela nationalizing their oil industry and evicting American oil companies. Then, in January, the US military abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, an astonishing breach of international norms. With Maduro gone, Trump began shadily directing Venezuelan oil revenue into an offshore Qatari account.
The Need to Wean Ourselves off of Oil
Such oil imperialism long predates Trump. Just ask other offenders of the US oil monopoly, like Muammar Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein. Oil is the locus of US foreign policy. The US military itself is the single largest institutional polluter and user of fossil fuels. It’s a dirty business that’s ruining the planet and jeopardizing our futures in countless ways, of which this despicable war in Iran is just the latest and highest profile.
The simple answer to all this madness is to wean ourselves off of oil. It won’t be easy, and we’ll probably never be fully rid of it, but we aren’t even trying. There are a million ways we could start cutting back, a million investments we could make toward a future that is as oil free as possible. But Trump is doing everything he can to keep us addicted to it, including starting an unpopular and illegal war.
Trump has always been particularly pro-fossil fuel. He loves the nonsensical phrase “beautiful clean coal.” He calls green energy a “scam” and has repeatedly made the utterly deranged claim that windmills cause cancer. His administration displays a psychotic obsession with destroying green energy initiatives, most recently paying a French energy company $1 billion to cancel a wind farm and instead invest in oil and gas.
Oil makes all our lives dirtier and less safe. Fighting wars so we can dig it up until it’s all gone—or until we are—is as stupid, reckless, and self-destructive a thing as any animal has ever done. With a little bit of will and some leadership, we could control our greed and addiction. If we were able to do that, we might not find ourselves charging into the Middle East on such a regular basis, burning through American lives and treasure, killing countless men and women and children, and making the rest of the world hate us.
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Activists wave Cuban and Palestinian flags from the vessel Maguro, arriving from Mexico with humanitarian aid as part of the “Nuestra America,” or Our America convoy, in Havana Bay, Cuba, March 24, 2026
Over 100 MPs call on PM to oppose Trump’s oil blockade on Cuba
MORE than 100 MPs have voiced “grave concern” over Donald Trump’s Cuba oil blockade, calling on PM Sir Keir Starmer to oppose the US president’s “collective punishment” of its civilian population.
Ministers were urged to reject Washington’s threat to slap tariffs on any other country that ships fuel to the island after it kidnapped Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in January.
The US has blocked Venezuelan oil supplies to Cuba’s socialist government, which said last week that it had not received any fuel in three months.
Your Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, Labour, SNP, Plaid Cymru, Green, SDLP, and Lib Dem MPs have now signed an early day motion by Labour MP for Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr Steve Witherden.
Mr Corbyn told the Morning Star: “The aim of the criminal and inhumane blockade by the US is clear: to starve the Cuban people into submission. They will not succeed.
“As much as the United States would wish otherwise, Cuba is not alone.”
They collectively called on the government to reject the “unjustifiable” sanctions and US claims that Cuba poses an “extraordinary” threat.
…
Socialist MP Richard Burgon, who was in Cuba this weekend delivering humanitarian aid with an international delegation, said: “In Cuba I saw the cruel consequences of Trump’s total ban on fuel entering the country, including its impact on the ability to provide healthcare to those in need.
“Cutting off fuel to an entire country is an inhumane attempt by Trump to strangle the Cuban people into submission. It is illegal and it’s putting lives at risk.
“The UK rightly votes against the US blockade at the UN each year, but that must now be matched with action. It should follow Spain’s example and provide emergency humanitarian aid.”
Green Party parliamentary leader Dr Ellie Chowns said: “Trump has intensified his threats against Cuba following the collapse of the island nation’s energy grid under a US-imposed oil blockade, declaring just yesterday that he believes he will ‘take’ the country and ‘could do anything [he] want[s] with it. This cannot continue.”
Cuba Solidarity Campaign director Rob Miller said his group is delighted with the number of MPs who have signed the motion, saying: “Together they represent over seven million UK constituents.
“We now hope the UK government will move quickly to send humanitarian support to Cuba, a country with which we have had full diplomatic and friendly relations for over 120 years.”
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US President Donald Trump speaks during a bilateral meeting with the Taoiseach of Ireland Micheál Martin in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on March 17, 2026. (Photo by Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images)
The absence of any US strategy becomes clearer by the day. Trump has thrown everything at the wall in the hope that something will stick. So far, nothing has.
President Donald Trump is a victim of his own success. After a quick strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities last June and the capture of Venezuela’s president and First Lady in January, the US military, the illegality of those operations notwithstanding, made war look easy and Trump feel omnipotent.
Three weeks into a more daunting excursion into Iran, Trump is now a desperate leader.
With Trump, everything is personal. A growing body of evidence suggests that a principal objective in attacking Iran was the assassination of the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. For example:
When the CIA learned that the Ayatollah and top Iranian officials would be meeting in a militarily accessible location, a previously planned nighttime strike was moved up to the middle of the day.
On Sunday night, March 1, shortly after reports that the US-Israeli attack had killed the Ayatollah, Trump said, “I got him before he got me.” He was referring to an alleged plot to kill Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign as retribution for the January 2020 US strike that killed Iran’s military leader Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps,
The desire to downplay Trump’s desire for vengeance explains why he and his minions have offered more noble—and contradictory—justifications for the war, including:
To help the Iranian people secure their freedom (Trump);
To attack Iran because Israel was going to do it and that would result in Iran’s attack on US assets in the Middle East (Secretary of State Marco Rubio);
To attack Iran first, not because Israel was going to do it anyway, but because Trump had a gut feeling that Iran was going to attack the US (Trump). But Pentagon officials informed Congress that no intelligence supported Trump’s opinion;
To eliminate Iran’s nuclear capability (although Trump claimed to have done that with the June attack).
Mission Accomplished?
Whatever his motivations, deploying the might of the military force was the beginning and the end of Trump’s thinking. He and his advisors are now flailing in the aftermath.
Iran has divided its global adversaries by holding the world’s economy hostage. Closing the Strait of Hormuz to the US and its allies sent world markets reeling as the price of oil increased by 40 percent and the price of gasoline in the US rose by almost $1.00 per gallon. Trump is trying to sell the line that such costs in the short run will pay off in the long run, but few are buying it.
Trump’s Desperate Ploys
The absence of any US strategy becomes clearer by the day. Trump has thrown everything at the wall in the hope that something will stick. So far, nothing has.
He floated a $200 million insurance guarantee for ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz – but not everyone lives in Trump’s world in which everything has a price.
He suggested using US military escorts for the tankers but offered no timeline; the risks to US military personnel and equipment would be enormous.
He tried shaming oil tanker crews to “show some guts” and continue sailing through the Strait – even as tankers burst into flames when trying to do so. Maybe Trump should go first.
He pleaded with world leaders to join his “team” to reopen the Strait for shipping, saying, “Some are very enthusiastic about it, and some aren’t. Some are countries that we’ve helped for many, many years. We’ve protected them from horrible outside sources, and they weren’t that enthusiastic. And the level of enthusiasm matters to me.”
He ridiculed allies refusing his requests to join a war that he started without consulting them: “We have some countries where we have 45,000 soldiers, great soldiers, protecting them from harm’s way, and we have done a great job. And when we want to know, ‘Do you have any mine sweepers?’ ‘Well, would rather not get involved, sir.’”
He made threats that are not-so-veiled: “If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO.”
Attacking the Messenger
In a futile effort at damage control, Trump accused media outlets of dispensing “fake news” about the growing Iran debacle. They “should be brought up on charges of TREASON,” he posted. In the same tirade, he said that he was “thrilled to see Brendan Carr, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), looking at the licenses of some of these Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations.”
Hearing and heeding his master’s voice, Carr shared another Trump post criticizing news coverage of the Iran war and issued this hollow threat: “Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions – also known as the fake news – have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up… Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s lengthy criticism of Iran war coverage included a special message for CNN: “The sooner David Ellison [the son of billionaire Trump supporter Larry Ellison] takes over that network, the better.”
This much is certain: Trump will never take responsibility for any failure of his policies, including the Iran war. When his deportation operation became a scandal and one of his worst political liabilities, Kristi Noem became a casualty. If Trump’s Iran war continues to go badly, he’ll need another scapegoat. Hegseth has been living on borrowed time since the Signalgate scandal. He should have been fired long ago.
But make no mistake. Hegseth is just Trump’s useful idiot. This is and always has been Trump’s war. It began as his personal war of retribution, ignored predictable consequences for the world, and never had an endgame strategy.
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Activists wave Cuban and Palestinian flags from the vessel Maguro, arriving from Mexico with humanitarian aid as part of the “Nuestra America,” or Our America convoy, in Havana Bay, Cuba, March 24, 2026
