Three Invasions in One Year: What the Cuba Talk Really Signals
Somewhere in the Roosevelt Room last week, the president of the United States described invading another country the way the rest of us describe a weekend errand. Cuba, he told “The Axios Show,” is “a hopscotch.” It has “a nice property” and “a nice shoreline.” That was the pitch. Not a threat assessment, not a strategy, just a glance at the map and a shrug.
When Axios asked whether an operation in Cuba might unfold like the January raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump answered, “Possibly. It’s possible,” according to the interview published June 19. He said Secretary of State Marco Rubio is “involved very much,” and that his timeline stays “flexible.” Translation: a nation of roughly 10 million people, 90 miles from Florida, is now something we might seize whenever the mood strikes.
We have already seen something like this play out before. The United States captured Maduro on January 3 and flew him out of the country, according to The Associated Press, in an operation Trump now describes as 201 people finishing the job in 48 minutes. The aftermath has been messier than the highlight reel. We announced we would “run” Venezuela until a transition, and Venezuela’s own vice president called us an illegal invader. More than six in 10 Americans said the operation should have required approval from Congress, according to a Washington Post poll. It never got one.
Now consider the stated reason Cuba could be next. U.S. intelligence found the island acquired more than 300 military drones and discussed using them against Guantanamo Bay, American vessels and possibly Key West, according to Axios, which noted this “could become a pretext for U.S. military intervention.” Sit with that word. Pretext. We are being told in advance what the excuse will be.
Here is what the talk of shoreline leaves out. Cuba is starving in the dark, and we helped switch off the lights. After the Maduro raid, the Venezuelan oil that once covered roughly half the island’s supply stopped, and Cuba produces only about 40 percent of the fuel it needs, according to NPR. The national grid has collapsed more than once this year, leaving its roughly 10 million people without power, according to NPR reporting from Havana. The United Nations has warned the health system is buckling. This is not a “nice property.” It is a humanitarian emergency — which the US caused.
And most of us are not buying the sales pitch. Only 23 percent of Americans support using military force to overthrow Cuba’s government, while 53 percent oppose it, according to an Economist and YouGov poll in March. A separate survey from the Center for Economic and Policy Research and YouGov found 64 percent of us opposed a U.S. military takeover of the island. We did not want the Venezuela invasion either. Support for it was only 26 percent that week, according to Economist and YouGov.
So why does our wanting matter so little? Because the pattern of the past six months is a president treating war as a personal errand and Congress as an afterthought. He skipped the vote on Venezuela. He fought Iran and told Axios there are “no limits” on his power now. Cuba would be the third act, and the precedent does not stay in the Caribbean. A war power that needs no permission can point anywhere.
We are not spectators. The 2026 midterms are our next chance to say plainly that the Constitution still puts the question of war in our hands, not one man’s. Call the members of Congress who are supposed to cast that vote. Ask them, on the record, whether they will authorize an invasion of Cuba or stop one. Make them answer before the drones do. Go beyond the headlines…
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