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Manufacturing Consent for Trump's Invasion of Cuba
The indictment of Castro is a page taken from Trump’s playbook on Venezuela from earlier this year. And the stage is being set for something much worse to come.
May 30, 2026
These days, most of Havana’s streets are fairly empty of cars, but full of people walking or riding bicycles, electric bikes, electric “tricycles,” or scooters. Trash has piled up on most corners where regular pick-up has become impossible given that the garbage trucks have no gasoline. The average conversation starts off with comparing who’s gone the longest without electricity. The sympathy flows, as you exchange stories of what else you are going without: water, gas, food, medicine, transportation. People list the family members they haven’t been able to see and the medical appointments they’ve missed. Inevitably, someone will say better days are coming—“because they have to”—and to keep moving forward.
This week alone, the US Department of Justice indicted Raul Castro, the former head of state, who’s now 94 years old and largely out of public life. In addition, the Supreme Court gave a green light to Cuban-American-owned companies with property claims in Cuba from 67 years ago to sue tourist industry actors who “profited” from that land. Secretary of State Marco Rubio continues to grow more and more publicly agitated with Cuba’s refusal to bow to his demands, and Trump’s consistent incoherence shows an absolute lack of any clear policy position towards Cuba, aside from one that may economically benefit him and/or his family.
The indictment of Castro is a page taken from Trump’s playbook on Venezuela from earlier this year. There, the administration indicted a sitting head of state, Nicolas Maduro, as a legal pretext for a military intervention, which was labelled an “emergency” and thus not an act of war that would require Congressional approval. The administration staged a geopolitical coup d’état involving international kidnapping, acts of war in plain violation of international law and the U.N. Charter, and then imprisoned that leader as a message to the world of what happens to those who defy US interests. Such indictments serve as purportedly fixed legal fictions for shifting political pretexts. In Venezuela it was supposedly the state’s support for criminal enterprises and gangs, which was the justification for the Trump administration’s stated reason for the extrajudicial killing of nearly 200 civilians in piracy actions in the Caribbean. Once Maduro was kidnapped and jailed, the administration has stopped talking gangs and narcotrafficking rings.
In Cuba, the Justice Department’s indictment of Raul Castro is a clear response to the political forces that commanded it. As the island nation is not complying rapidly enough to the changes demanded by Washington, the administration has escalated its threats, military preparations, and legal actions, albeit largely symbolic in nature.
Rubio’s Escalation of Threats as Campaign Messaging
For decades, Marco Rubio has pushed for privately what the Cuban-American community in south Florida has not achieved in nearly 70 years: to run Cuba’s political and economic system remotely from Miami and Washington. These remote “owners” of Cuba have driven and financed Rubio’s political career, leading to this moment where he is adamantly (though unsuccessfully) trying to sell the American public that Cuba is a national security threat while simultaneously telling Cubans that their government is too weak to protect them. That inherent contradiction and incoherence, long the basis of US policy towards Cuba, have never been more dangerous than at this moment when Rubio’s rage and blind ambition to cause widespread destruction is bolstered by Trump’s monarchical goals.
The contradictory discourse is present in nearly every aspect of Cuba policy. Just this week, Rubio issued an Orwellian statement in response to the ICE arrest of Adys Lastres Morera, the sister of the head of GAESA, a Cuban entity that is connected to large swaths of the Cuban economy. Rubio was right to point out that “[f]or far too long, the family members of terrorist organizations, repressive anti-American regimes and other bad actors . . . have been given a free pass to enjoy the privileges of living in the United States,” but the United States also has a long tradition of granting sanctuary to terrorists, dictators, and war criminals. In particular, Latin American leaders, generals, and intelligence operatives that have long done the US bidding in propping up violent regimes have been granted refuge in south Florida, the home of Rubio and other elected officials who have promoted violence over diplomacy.
Yet what makes international cooperation, collaboration, and survival possible is not just insisting upon respect for international law and human rights by all governments, but strengthening their ability to do so through dialogue and diplomacy. The Trump-Rubio administration has clearly not been serious about using diplomacy to solve global conflicts, and that holds true in Cuba as well. The administration has tried to identify potential “opposition” I Cuba or political leaders it can “work with” like Delcy Rodriguez in Venezuela. Real US diplomacy looks quite different. Twelve years ago, it brought to Cuba a boom of economic activity, a thriving private sector, better financed public institutions, and riveting cultural exchanges for over a million US residents who found in Cuba a rich cultural, musical, artistic, and academic partner.
Trump and Rubio, though they might articulate the same goals, have different ulterior motives. Their goal is not, and has never been, economic opportunity for Cubans. Instead, they want an economic boon for Cuban-Americans aching to exert political and economic control over a land many have never even visited. Although Florida no longer plays a significant electoral role in US-Cuba policy, Rubio’s recent video talking to the Cuban people—and his messaging in general in escalating threats and aggression towards Cuba—is clearly intended to rally his base. What has caused widespread anxiety and fear among millions in Cuba has nevertheless excited his political base in south Florida.
Inside Cuba
These days in Havana, Cubans are experiencing a duality that has existed for generations who have lived under the threat of US military aggression and the daily reality of economic warfare. Cubans are exhausted. They are increasingly anxious and have reached the bottom of the well of hope. There is a saying that the last thing you lose is hope, meaning it is what you hold on to until the very end. Cubans are at the very end of their ability to see a hopeful future.
I get asked questions daily. Should I take my kids to a shelter? Will the United States bomb Havana? Where is it safe to go? Why don’t US citizens stop their government?
Cubans are experts at survival, and that’s exactly what they continue to do. As US Southern Command sends the aircraft carrier Nimitz into Caribbean waters, Cubans continue to carry on with daily life like they have done decade after decade. Most days, those around me look for an electric tricycle to take them to work or their child to school or have added a child seat to their bicycles. Cars that run on gasoline have become what one of my friends calls “garage adornments.”
Given the daily threat of military intervention and the four-month long oil blockade, activities like sleep have become a luxury. Many families cook or wash clothes at 3:00 a.m. when they get 1-2 hours of electricity. My friend sleeps on the floor with her son near the front door where air drafts can keep them cool in the sweltering heat and humidity. Most of us go without water for days at a time because lack of electricity makes pumping and distributing water impossible. Another dear friend went 35 days with no water while she, her mother, and her toddler spent weeks traveling from house to house bathing and washing clothes. Cooking and cleaning become infinitely more difficult with no water, gas, or electricity. Some daycare centers use coal to cook lunch for undernourished children.
While we live under the perpetual threat of US military aggression, children continue to play in the street with sticks and deflated balls, families continue to find ways to get to work and buy food, and the deep spiritual and religious traditions that sustain many Cubans are turned to over and over again. War has a name and a face. It’s not just a vague “government.” Here there are millions of people who owe the United States nothing and instead have only demanded to live in peace, in their homeland, however flawed it may be.
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Bolivia Lawmakers Overturn Limits on ‘Martial Law’ as Mass Uprising Demands Ouster of President
"They call us all bandits and thugs," said protesters, who have been met with a police crackdown. "We are democracy."
May 25, 2026
Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz, who is facing calls for his resignation as Indigenous and labor organizers lead protests across the country, could declare a "state of exception"—described by local reporters as "essentially martial law"—as soon as Monday night after the country's Senate overwhelmingly voted to overturn a law regulating the government's ability to crack down on protests.
According to Bolivian reports, the Chamber of Senators on Sunday overturned Law 1341, which since 2020 had imposed strict time limits on emergency measures, ensured certain violable rights could not be suspended under a state of exception, required legislative oversight, and made the president criminally liable for exceeding the law's perimeters.
"Abrogating Law 1341 does not remove the state of exception from Bolivia’s legal architecture," according to The Rio Times. "It removes the apparatus that prevented that constitutional clause from being exercised at the executive’s sole discretion."
Joseph Bouchard, who has reported for Drop Site News and The Intercept from Latin America, said far-right groups linked to the 2019 coup in Bolivia have demanded "a return to martial law, to use lethal force against opposition with impunity, and crack down on opposition as much as possible."
"Many of these groups are openly fascist and white supremacist," said Bouchard.
The law was overturned about three weeks into nationwide protests against Paz, who took office about six months ago. Protesters allied with former President Evo Morales have expressed anger over the administration's decision to end a fuel subsidy that was essential for working people amid an economic crisis. The demonstrators—comprised of a broad coalition which includes Indigenous groups, labor unions, and farmworkers—have demanded higher wages and an end to privatization and the broader neoliberal project under Paz.
The protests have been met with a crackdown by police, in La Paz and at the sites of dozens of road blockades around the country.
Last week, the country's public prosecutor issued arrest warrants for at least two organizers, including Mario Argollo, executive secretary of the top Bolivian labor union, Central Obrera Boliviana (COB).
On Monday, TeleSUR reported that COB refused to engage in talks with Paz's government until the charges against Argollo are dropped.
Bouchard reported that if Paz's government implements a state of exception, "the measures would mean security forces could arrest anyone, for any reason, and use extraordinary measures against all opposition."
The overturning of Law 1341 struck down limits on "the use of lethal force by the security forces," he said.
Only three senators aligned with Vice President Edmand Lara voted against repealing the law.
According to The Rio Times, Lara "has been politically distancing himself from Paz almost since inauguration."
"No measure can stand above human life," said Lara, expressing "profound concern and indignation" over the Senate vote.
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'Hondurasgate': A Symptom of Deeper Crises in Honduras and a Warning for Latin America
If no-holds-barred measures were deployed in the Honduran elections, they might be anticipated on a much bigger scale, again with little restraint, when the prizes could be Latin America’s biggest economies.
May 25, 2026
Governance in Honduras shifted sharply to the extreme right within months of National Party’s Nasry Asfura taking office on January 27, succeeding the Libre party’s progressive Xiomara Castro. In November 30 elections, the National Party was trailing a poor third before US President Donald Trump threatened to end all aid to Honduras unless Asfura won. Even then, Asfura had only a wafer-thin plurality, which might well have disappeared had the electoral council not broken its mandate by halting the count before all the votes had been tallied.
Compounding this blatant interference, Trump announced just two days before the election that he was pardoning former Honduran President and National Party stalwart, Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been extradited to the US and was serving a 45-year sentence for narco-trafficking. Corporate media treated Trump’s pardon as just a typically blatant political maneuver. Yet they have since largely ignored what appears to be a much bigger element of the same plot.
The Emerging Regional Offensive
The wider conspiracy has been revealed in a trove of leaked audio recordings, now dubbed “Hondurasgate.” The 37 recordings appear to show that Hernández—still in the US—is preparing a return to Honduran politics and, in league with Republican Party officials, is actively producing propaganda directed against progressive governments across Latin America.
Claims by Hondurasgate investigators that the recordings have been independently verified now appear to be at least partially substantiated by a separate investigation commissioned by Drop Site News. BBC Mundo recently interviewed Hernández and asked for his response to the controversy, but received no response.
The blatant US intervention exemplified by Hondurasgate may be an ominous foreshadowing of likely interference in the upcoming elections in Colombia (this month), Brazil (October), and Mexico (2030), all currently governed by progressives.
Shocking as the revelations are, Hondurasgate is symptomatic of a much more ambitious project to exploit Honduras and impose the “Donroe Doctrine” across the region. Whether or not the recordings are all genuine, the wider project is very much alive.
Power Consolidation Through Lawfare and Repression
Since taking office, Asfura wasted no time consolidating control over Honduran institutions. The elections left the Libre party with fewer than one-third of the seats in the National Congress, reverting to the historic pattern in Honduras in which the National and the Liberal parties—both neoliberal and subservient to Washington—swap power. This has enabled Asfura to move quickly against his enemies.
Marlon Ochoa, Libre’s representative on the electoral council and the first official to call out the electoral fraud, was impeached by Congress on fabricated charges, received death threats, and fled the country.
The sitting attorney general, also from Libre, was dismissed. The Supreme Court president was forced to resign, while other leading congressional members were impeached. Many of those kicked out of their jobs also had their US visas revoked.
“It is a political lawfare operation in which Honduran institutions are acting against the country’s own legal framework to eliminate political opponents,” wrote Diario RED. Carmen Haydeé López, Libre’s press officer, describes the moves as “state capture” by the ruling National Party.
Worse may follow: “If we have to kill people so we can have peace of mind, we’ll do it,” Hernández says in the Hondurasgate audios. Further, “If we have to resort to repression to control the country, we’ll do it.”
Far-right operative Roger Stone—a Trump associate said to have orchestrated Hernández’s pardon—even called for the US to kidnap Xiomara Castro and her husband, former president “Mel” Zelaya, “like they did with Maduro.”
Return to the Narco-State
These developments signal Honduras’ return to the corrupt and criminal neoliberal order that prevailed after the 2009 military coup and lasted until Xiomara Castro’s presidency in January 2022.
For most of this earlier period, Juan Orlando Hernández dominated politics, transforming Honduras into a “narco-state.” Over the years, he facilitated the trafficking to the US of at least 400 tons of cocaine, accepted huge bribes (including $1 million from Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán), and ran a regime marked by extreme violence.
The leaked recordings show Hernández expects a reconfigured judiciary to clear him of outstanding charges in Honduras. This would pave the way for his return and even to make a run for president again in 2029.
Rolling Back Social Gains and Imposing Austerity
In the meantime, Asfura has moved rapidly to dismantle the Libre government’s modest achievements. Castro had begun to invest heavily in a public health service that fell apart during the Covid-19 pandemic. Asfura halted construction of three hospitals her administration had partially completed. He also withdrew a popular subsidy for electricity bills benefiting 600,000 low-income families.
In the last few weeks, Honduras has witnessed widespread protests against the weakening of workers’ rights, a march organized by 30 campesino movements against legislation that strengthens the hands of big landowners, and student demonstrations over cuts in university budgets.
Another worrying hint of a return to the narc-ostate has been a sharp increase in homicides, extortions, kidnappings, and femicides. Violence peaked on May 21, with 24 violent deaths in two incidents: 19 peasant farmers murdered in a land conflict and five people killed in a gang assault on a police vehicle.
Cuts in public spending and attacks on the rights of the 60% of Hondurans living in poverty constitute Asfura’s austerity program. But Asfura’s and Hernández’s aims are for a much wider transformation of the country.
One of Castro’s reforms was to declare illegal the private model cities or “ZEDEs,” which Hernández and his predecessor initiated in the face of community protests. Asfura has reversed her decisions, thus neutralizing huge pending lawsuits filed against Honduras by the libertarian investors in two ZEDEs, Próspera and Morazán. US investor and billionaire Trump adviser Peter Thiel is a key figure behind Próspera. The congress is now exploring how to promote more of these libertarian “states within a state” that ride roughshod over the rights of local communities.
Militarization and Reassertion of US Hegemony
Another payoff for Trump in return for Hernández’s pardon is the promise of a second US military base in Honduras. Because of its strategic position in Central America, the US already has the huge Soto Cano base, which Castro threatened to close. Soon, according to Marlon Ochoa, the US will install another base on the island of Roatán, further strengthening Washington’s naval domination of the Caribbean.
If built, it will be part of a wave of US militarization in the region, with a strengthened base in El Salvador and US troops newly deployed in Panama.
Another dramatic change is the restoration of close ties with Israel. During Castro’s presidency, Honduras (along with Colombia and Nicaragua) was one of Latin America’s fiercest critics of the Gaza genocide. Hernández, when president, had close links with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who (according to the Hondurasgate recordings) had "everything to do" with Hernández’s pardon.
This month, Israeli President Issac Herzog embarked on a diplomatic tour of Central America, stopping in Panama and attending the inauguration of Costa Rica’s new President, Laura Fernández. While in San Jose, Herzog met Chile’s new right-wing President José Antonio Kast and Honduras’s Nasry Asfura who, despite his Palestinian ancestry, identifies as a Christian Zionist. Asfura’s administration is part of a broader regional trend in which Trump-aligned governments (such as Bolivia’s) restore ties with Israel that were severed by their predecessors.
Asfura is reportedly planning legislation to encourage investment by US and Israeli AI firms. Honduras’s abundant water resources and renewable energy infrastructure would be central to such projects. Yet several of these developments have proven highly controversial with rural communities, including the notorious hydro project which led to the murder of Berta Cáceres.
Testing Ground for the “Donroe Doctrine"
Gerardo Torres Zelaya says that “Honduras is not an isolated case: It is a testing ground for a new offensive against our democracies.” Torres Zelaya, a former vice minister in Castro’s administration, believes that what is at stake is not just the outcome of an election, but progressive Latin American governments being subjected to offensives that “no longer operate according to traditional rules.”
He adds that the region now faces hybrid warfare, strategically combining disinformation, economic coercion, criminal networks and, if required, military force. Trump’s intervention in Honduras raised the stakes further when compared with previous electoral interference. Yet even that was soon surpassed by the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
In March, Trump assembled his regional allies in pursuing his “Donroe Doctrine” to create the “Shield of the Americas.” Nasry Asfura was there, of course, along with his opposite numbers in El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Panama.
The blatant US intervention exemplified by Hondurasgate may be an ominous foreshadowing of likely interference in the upcoming elections in Colombia (this month), Brazil (October), and Mexico (2030), all currently governed by progressives. If no-holds-barred measures were deployed in the Honduran elections, they might be anticipated on a much bigger scale, again with little restraint, when the prizes could be Latin America’s biggest economies. Hondurasgate signals that Trump will not act alone; his accomplices will be the 12 members of his “Shield of the Americas.”
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