US President Donald Trump joked Friday that the US Navy would seize Cuba on the way home from Iran, telling an audience at the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches that his military would be “taking over almost immediately” once it had finished operations in the Gulf.
“We’ll finish one first. I like to finish a job. On the way back from what we’ll do… on the way back from Iran, we’ll have one of our big, maybe the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier — the biggest in the world — will have that come in. Stop about 100 yards offshore, and they’ll say, ‘thank you very much. We give up,’” Trump said, according to EuroNews coverage relayed by Newswire.
The remarks came hours after Trump signed an executive order broadening US sanctions on Cuba, targeting wide segments of the state-run economy and warning foreign banks that deal with Havana of secondary penalties. Cuba called the move “collective punishment.”
Trump has repeatedly raised the possibility of military action against Cuba in the months since his administration’s January 3 operation in Venezuela, which toppled and captured President Nicolás Maduro. He has accused Cuba of supplying security personnel to Maduro’s alleged drug-trafficking network in exchange for cash and oil — both flows the US cut off after the Caracas operation.
Cuba has since faced acute fuel shortages that have idled industries, halted public transport in several provinces and disrupted hospital services. The United Nations has repeatedly warned of an unfolding humanitarian crisis driven by the US embargo.
The off-the-cuff remark — delivered while the Iran war remains unresolved and the Strait of Hormuz only partially open — drew immediate concern that Washington could open a third concurrent military front in 2026.
