Granma, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, published a compilation of purported “social media comments” in which supporters of the 67-year-old regime threatened Americans with death should any operation to hold the criminals in charge of the island nation take place.
The comments were a response to President Donald Trump approving an operation to arrest now-deposed Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, a close ally of the Castro regime, on January 3 to execute a warrant on a variety of criminal charges, most of them related to narco-terrorist activity. Given the Castro regime’s use of Venezuela’s generous oil reserves to keep its impoverished communist economy afloat, President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have since warned the Cuban government to cooperate with American law enforcement efforts or face American actions to preserve the country’s national security.
Notably, the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes are so close that the operation to arrest Maduro, according to Granma, killed at least 32 Cuban state security thugs, reportedly on duty protecting the Venezuelan dictator.
“Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of OIL and MONEY from Venezuela. In return, Cuba provided ‘Security Services’ for the last two Venezuelan dictators, BUT NOT ANYMORE!” Trump wrote in a message on his website, Truth Social, on Sunday.
“Most of those Cubans are DEAD from last weeks U.S.A. attack, and Venezuela doesn’t need protection anymore from the thugs and extortionists who held them hostage for so many years,” Trump continued, referring to those killed protecting Maduro. “Venezuela now has the United States of America, the most powerful military in the World (by far!), to protect them, and protect them we will.”
“THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. Thank you for your attention to this matter,” he concluded.
The purported netizens quoted by Granma responded with vitriol to the statement.
“The drums of war sound in the distance, and over our heads the vultures that announce the threat are circling,” one alleged pro-regime Cuban user wrote. “We will resist and, if it is necessary, we will die to save our people, but we will never renounce life and hope.”
“They know that, if they come here, they come to die,” another alleged user wrote, referring to Americans. “If I were them, I would be worried if their psychopathic president decides to send them. I would be very much so. A sure path to death.”
This alleged user did not explain how the Cuban security agents in Cuba would fare better against the U.S. military on an island that is home to a U.S. military facility than they did in Caracas.
Another alleged social media user used the comments posted on Granma to disparage Rubio, who is Cuban-American and thus the target of particular vitriol by the regime (the Cuban government does not recognize the American citizenship of Cuban-Americans, claiming them as citizens with no American rights even if, like Rubio, they were born in America and are not known to have ever publicly been to Cuba).
“Finally Marco Rubio, the cowardly, lying, and failed killer at the distance … succeeded in getting Trump to threaten us and [issue] Sunday’s ultimatum charged with ignorance, disrespectful derision, and useless phrases of threats and intimidation,” the alleged social media comment read.
Comments published by arms of the Communist Party alleging to be from regular Cubans can be taken as official statements from the Castro regime, as the government has been caught in the past fabricating false social media sentiment in its favor. In 2018, Twitter deleted dozens of accounts allegedly belonging to regular Cubans spreading communist propaganda later exposed as stolen identities – including of foreign celebrities such as Greek singer Sakis Rouvas – to create fake pro-regime Cubans.
The leaders of the Communist Party also chimed in against Trump. Puppet “president” Miguel Díaz-Canel, who is subordinate to dictator Raúl Castro, published a rant declaring that his regime was “willing to defend the Fatherland until the last drop of blood.”
“They have no morals to blame Cuba for anything, absolutely anything – those who turn everything into business, including human life,” Díaz-Canel railed on social media. “Those who blame the Revolution for the severe economic shortages that we suffer should shut up out of shame. Because they know and recognize that they [the shortages] are the fruit of the draconian measures of extreme asphyxia of the United States.”
In reality, the United States does not in any way impede humanitarian aid, or food or medicine generally, from entering Cuba. Cuba spent a record amount on buying American chicken in 2024, only to later ration it to its people.
On Monday, Díaz-Canel claimed on social media that his regime was not negotiating with the United States outside of routine discussions on migrant issues.
“We have always had a disposition of sustaining a serious and responsible dialogue with the different governments of the U.S.,” the “president” claimed, “including the actual [government], about bases of sovereign equality, mutual respect, human rights principles, reciprocal benefit without interference in internal affairs and with full respect to our independence.”
The Cuban regime has made clear that it will fight to maintain its colonization of Venezuela, which at its peak resulted in almost 100,000 Communist Party agents flooding Caracas to help Maduro keep power. Castro’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez visited Caracas on Thursday to attend a mourning ceremony for the Cubans killed protecting Maduro in which he vowed Cuba would continue to be a dominant power in the country.
“The Bolivarian and Chavista Revolution and the Cuban Revolution, in their destinies and common struggle, will be examples for the liberation of the peoples of our America,” Rodríguez said. “We will continue in our work in the defense of peace, in international mobilization, in the campaign to defend international law, and the rights to life and peace of peoples.”
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