US State Department calls Cuba a threat in new report

There is *** new report about one of our closest yet most contentious neighbors. The State Department calls Cuba *** threat with government and military installations potentially in their sights. Now the State Department says that Cuba is the capital of 21st century communism. This is just the latest chapter in the decades-long diplomatic battle between these two nations. West 2’s Sanneca Dage takes *** closer look at the complicated history between the United States and Cuba. 90 miles from Florida sits an island nation that has played *** role in shaping global politics, Cold War fears, and immigration policies. The tumultuous relationship between the United States and Cuba stretches back to the end of the 19th century when the US helped Cuba gain independence from Spain during the Spanish-American War of 1898. But the US Military occupied the island until 1902 when the Republic of Cuba was established and troops only left after adding the Platt Amendment, which not only gave the US the right to intervene in domestic affairs, it secured the lease for Guantanamo Bay. As we enter the 20th century, tourism in Cuba flourished as Americans flocked to the island. But everything changed in 1959 when revolutionary leader Fidel Castro overthrew U.S.backed dictator Fulgencio Batista and seized power. and people went wild. They surrounded him, engulfed him, clutched and clawed him. Fidel, our liberator, they roared, Fidel our savior. On May 1, 1961, Castro declared Cuba as *** communist country. Aligning himself with the Soviet Union, that’s when the first wave of Cubans fled, welcomed in the US with open arms in 1966. The Cuban-American Adjustment Act allowed any Cuban who had lived in the US for *** year to become *** permanent resident. Meanwhile, Castro seized control of property on the island, including farms, abandoned lots, and billions of dollars’ worth of US-owned sugar mills, oil refineries, mines, banks, and agricultural lands. In April of 1962, in *** mission backed by the CIA, counterrevolutionary Cubans tried to overthrow Castro and invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. That failed in just two days, and by the end of the year, the Soviet Union moved nuclear missiles into Cuba. Within the past week. Unmistakable evidence has established the fact. that *** series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation. On that imprisoned island, the Cuban Missile Crisis would last 13 days until the Soviets dismantled and removed the missiles, and the US pledged to never invade Cuba. The US imposed *** sweeping economic embargo, and *** 54 year freeze followed, with the only diplomatic communication managed by Switzerland. More than *** million Cubans would make their way to the US, while thousands more tried unsuccessfully. And in April of 1980, Castro temporarily opened the Cuban port of Almariel under international pressure. More than 125,000 Cubans fled to Key West and Miami. By the end of the 19990s, the US agreed to return any boats to Cuba, and in February of 2008, Fidel Castro formally stepped down as president of Cuba. And his brother Raul Castro stepped in today. The United States of America is changing its relationship with the people of Cuba. In December of 2014, then President Barack Obama joined Raul Castro in announcing they would be reopening their respective embassies. When what you’re doing doesn’t work for 50 years, it’s time to try something new. Even traveled to Havana himself in May of 2015. The US removed Cuba from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, and by July of that year, full diplomatic relations were reestablished. The floodgates opened for US tourists to once again visit the communist island for the first time since that strict tourism ban in 1962. But the restrictions were tightened again under President Donald Trump in June of 2019. Venezuela had served as Cuba’s primary oil lifeline to power the island, and in January of 2026, the arrest of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela and seizure of Venezuelan oil devastated Cuba’s economy. The Trump administration then doubled down by announcing *** fuel blockade and threatening tariffs on countries that stepped in to provide oil to Cuba. In recent weeks, it’s led to widespread energy and power shortages across the island. Today Cuba faces economic hardship, political uncertainty, and growing pressure from both inside and outside the island as tensions continue to reach *** boiling point. So 2.