Cuba’s leadership responded sharply to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to starve the island of oil, while ordering the government to “make a deal or else.” The island is now on full military alert and defense mobilization in what is being called “a War of all the People.” On National Defense Day, Jan. 10, military exercises were held in the provinces of Santiago, Matanzas, Sierra Maestra, La Tunas, Cienfuegos and Camagüey, where attacks on communications infrastructure and the bombing of a rum factory were simulated. Various contingencies are being discussed, especially the implications of a shortage of fuel. Participants included all sectors of the population, including armed forces, militias, reserve officers, etc.
In a message reported by the Communist Party daily Granma on Jan. 11 President Miguel Díaz-Canel warned that “Cuba is a free, independent and sovereign nation. No one tells us what to do. Cuba does not attack, it has been attacked by the U.S. for 66 years; it doesn’t threaten, it prepares, willing to defend the Homeland to the last drop of blood.” Moreover, he added, the United States “doesn’t have the moral authority to accuse us of anything.... Those who turn everything into a business, including in human lives, those who hysterically rail against our nation, do so sick with rage over the sovereign decision of this people to choose their political model.”
