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Under the banner of fighting drug trafficking, the Trump administration seems to be careening toward war against Venezuela. It’s an open secret that its real objective is oil and regime change in both Venezuela and Cuba. It's also been widely reported that Venezuela is not a significant source of drug problems in the United States.
But what has received little media coverage and what the Trump administration dares not acknowledge is that on counternarcotics, Cuba is arguably the U.S. government’s most reliable regional ally. In this week's newsletter, we reveal the island's long track record of protecting U.S. borders from drug trafficking.
Also, watch our new video, in which Belly of the Beast journalist Liz Oliva Fernández dismantles the hypocrisy of the Trump administration’s war on drugs and how Cuba is not shipping drugs to the U.S., it's stopping them from getting there.
Also:
- Trump ends Family Reunification Parole for Cuba
- 22 Cubans sent to Guantánamo Bay prison
- Trump announces blockade of Venezuelan oil tankers
- Oil tanker seized by U.S. military was headed to Cuba
- Cuban allies approve plan to help ailing energy sector
- Democrat is elected Miami mayor over Cuban-American hardliner
- Mexican actor Gael García Bernal honored at Havana Film Festival
- Solidarity activists send million-dollar aid to Cuba
The Hidden Truth About Counternarcotics in the Caribbean
“The most efficient partner of the United States in security terms in Latin America is Cuba.”
—Hal Klepak, military historian, former NATO analyst and former advisor to Canada's foreign and defense ministers
Every year, the State Department delivers its International Narcotics Control Strategy Report to Congress. The document is a country-by-country breakdown of “all aspects of the international drug trade.”
The 2024 report states that Cuba is “not a major consumer, producer, or transshipment point for illicit drugs” and notes that its “robust and aggressive security presence reduces domestic demand and severely limits the ability of transnational criminal organizations to establish a foothold.” Drug traffickers, it says, “typically bypass Cuba in favor of neighboring countries.”
The report adds that the Cuban Border Guard has a “long-standing relationship with the U.S. Coast Guard and frequently reports known or suspected drug trafficking."
This year, under the supervision of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose brother-in-law was convicted of smuggling cocaine into the U.S. in the 1980s, the State Department excised Cuba from the entire International Narcotics Control Strategy Report.
No explanation was provided and the State Department did not respond to Belly of the Beast's requests for comment.
Could it be that the section on Cuba was cut because the State Department’s own analysis undermines the administration’s narrative?
We reported on the island’s counternarcotics efforts in eastern Cuba two years ago. Liz Oliva Fernández interviewed members of the Cuban Border Guard as well as a U.S. embassy official and a U.S. Coast Guard official who were meeting with their counterparts. Watch Liz’s video.
“The Coast Guard has always maintained very close relations with the Cuban government, and especially with the Interior Ministry and the Cuban Border Guard," said U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Alejandro Collazo. “I would dare say we speak to each other more than once a week.”
Despite Cuba’s erasure from the State Department's 2025 counternarcotics report, Cuba says it continues to collaborate with the United States.
“We’re providing the U.S. with information in real time,” Colonel Ybey Carballo, chief of Cuba's Border Guard, said at a recent press conference. “We tell them the characteristics of the boats, how many engines they have, the number of crew members.”
But the U.S. government's willingness to reciprocate Cuba's counternarcotics efforts may not be the same as it was a year ago.
Colonel Juan Carlos Poey, head of the Interior Ministry’s anti-drug unit, said that despite a 2016 counternarcotics agreement between the two countries, the U.S. is cooperating with Cuba “sporadically.”
Poey said the main source of drugs entering Cuba is the United States.
Nonetheless, Cuban counternarcotics officials continue to cooperate with their U.S. counterparts.
Last week, Cuban authorities announced they had detained 24 people involved in a network that trafficked drugs from the U.S. into Havana. The operation seized “more than a million doses” of the synthetic cannabinoid known as el quimico (the chemical). According to the Ministry of Interior, Cuba has submitted evidence of U.S. residents’ involvement in the operation to the Trump administration.
Trump Ends Family Reunification Parole for Cuba
The Department of Homeland Security announced last week the end of the Family Reunification Parole (FRP) program for nationals from Cuba, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti and Honduras.
People from those countries who are currently in the U.S. under Family Reunification Parole and had not applied for residency or a change of status by December 15 will have their legal status and work permits revoked.
“The desire to reunite families does not overcome the government’s responsibility to prevent fraud and abuse and to uphold national security and public safety,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
Family Reunification Parole joins the list of programs under which Cubans could legally enter the U.S. that have been dismantled by the Trump administration. These include Biden’s CBP One and Humanitarian Parole programs, whose termination put many of the over half million Cubans who entered the U.S. through them at risk of deportation.
A partial travel ban on Cubans has been in place since June. Trump earlier this month also suspended pending citizenship, green card and asylum applications for immigrants from countries “of concern,” including Cuba. More than a thousand Cubans have been deported to the island this year.
22 Cubans Sent to Guantánamo Bay Prison
The U.S. has sent 22 Cubans to the Guantánamo Bay Detention Center (GTMO) with the intention of deporting them elsewhere, The New York Times reports.
The detainees, all men, are the first to be sent there since the immigrant detention center was emptied in October. They are believed to be the first Cubans sent to GTMO since January.
As part of an ongoing class action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a federal judge ruled earlier this month that the administration was not authorized by federal law to hold migrants at overseas military installations.
“Guantánamo is largely operating as a black box, and that’s why we’ve asked the court to order the government to provide us with a list of who is sent there,” said Lee Gelernt, a lawyer heading this case with the ACLU, following this most recent transfer of Cubans to GTMO. “The government’s resistance to that reasonable step is astounding.”
It is unclear where the men would be sent next. Several Cubans have been deported to African countries like South Sudan and Eswatini.
Days after Trump took office he signed a memorandum to use the prison for “high priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States.” More than 700 people have been held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at GTMO since January. The plan to use GTMO to process deportees sparked fierce criticism from human rights groups.
In the 1990s, GTMO was used to temporarily incarcerate Cuban and Haitian migrants intercepted at sea. After 9/11 the base became infamous for torture and abuse. Fifteen men remain in the "war on terror" prison at GTMO, where they are being detained indefinitely without access to fair trials. Cuba has consistently called for the closure of the base, opposed its use as a prison and demanded that the 45 square miles of territory the U.S. has occupied since 1898 is returned.
In Other News
Trump announces blockade of Venezuelan oil tankers. President Trump on Tuesday ordered a “complete blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers sailing to and from Venezuela, as part of his pressure campaign against President Nicolás Maduro. Cuba called the blockade “a violation of international law” on Wednesday and expressed its support for Maduro. Last week, U.S. forces seized a Venezuelan tanker reportedly headed to Cuba, a move both Venezuela and Cuba called “an act of piracy.” Trump’s blockade could further exacerbate Cuba’s fuel crisis and power outages. Venezuela sends around 30,000 barrels a day to the island, although oil exports to Cuba have decreased by more than 70% since 2013, in part due to U.S. sanctions. The U.S. has deployed its largest military presence to the Caribbean in over six decades, alleging it’s fighting “narcoterrorism.” Venezuela has accused the U.S. of using drugs as an excuse to force regime change and take over its oil reserves, which are the biggest in the world.
Oil tanker seized by U.S. military was headed to Cuba.The oil tanker seized by U.S. forces in the Caribbean last week was part of Venezuela’s effort to help Cuba, according to multiple news reports. The New York Times reported that an estimated 50,000 of the almost 2 million barrels of crude oil on board the vessel were transferred to a different ship that headed to Cuba before the seizure of the larger tanker.
Cuba’s allies approve plan to help ailing energy sector. The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) on Sunday approved the creation of a joint plan to “support Cuba in the full restoration of electricity in the country.” Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro proposed the plan to ALBA member states, which include Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Grenada and Saint Lucia. No further details were offered about the plan.
Democrat is elected Miami mayor over Cuban-American hardliner. Eileen Higgins’ win in Miami’s mayoral election last week makes her the city’s first-ever woman mayor and first Democrat to hold that office in nearly three decades. She defeated Cuban-American Emilio González, who was endorsed by Trump and served as head of the U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) during the second George W. Bush administration. González, a standard-issue Miami hardliner when it comes to Cuba policy, was a prominent early proponent of classifying Cuba’s international medical cooperation missions as “human trafficking.” Rubio and other U.S. politicians have pushed that narrative and pressured countries to stop receiving Cuban medical services in recent years. González was also behind the politically motivated Medical Professional Parole program, which allowed Cuban health workers on missions to apply for U.S. visas. The program was ended by President Barack Obama in 2017.
Mexican actor Gael García Bernal honored at Havana Film Festival. The renowned actor last week received the Honorary Coral at the 46th Havana International Film Festival. Bernal, who has starred in films like Amores Perros, Y tu mamá también and Babel, has several links to Cuba. He studied on the island at the San Antonio de los Baños International Film and TV School, played Che Guevara twice (in the 2002 TV mini series Fidel and the 2004 film The Motorcycle Diaries) and was an actor in Wasp Network, which was partially filmed in Cuba. “I’m moved by this award,” the actor said. “I want to thank Cuba, which has given me so much.”
Solidarity activists send million-dollar aid to Cuba. Cuba solidarity organizations have sent a million dollars' worth of medical aid and hurricane relief to Cuba from California. The initiative includes the L.A. Hands Off Cuba Committee, the Pan American Medical Association, Global Health Partners and Not Just Tourists. “The immoral policies of the United States toward Cuba only strengthen, which makes this humanitarian effort, unfortunately, all the more important,” said Mike Vera, one of the activists behind the initiative in a video posted on social media.
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