Update May 21, 2026, 11:00 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional info about the Castro indictment ; Originally published May 18, 2026 at 2:59 p.m.
The Trump administration has been escalating its pressure campaign against Cuba’s communist regime, using sanctions, surveillance, legal action, and public warnings to push Havana toward major political and economic change.
President Donald Trump has also been signaling for months that Cuba could become a major focus of U.S. action. In March, he openly floated the possibility of “taking” the island nation via direct American involvement. And now Axios is out with a new report that could signal the convoluted way the United States government plans to justify military action.
The Axios Report
As reported on Monday’s AM Update, Axios – which has been repeatedly used by the Trump administration to front reporting on, for example, the Iran War and its imminent end that turns out not to be true – reportedly viewed classified intelligence showing Cuba has acquired more than 300 military drones from Iran and Russia and is discussing how they could be used against U.S. targets, including the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, U.S. military vessels, and, possibly, Key West, Florida, which is just 90 miles from Cuba.
U.S. officials told Axios they do not believe Cuba is preparing an imminent attack but say the drone buildup, combined with the presence of Iranian military advisors in Havana, is changing the way Washington views the threat from the island.
Axios conceded the intelligence “could become a pretext for U.S. military action.”
Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, pushed back on the reporting Sunday night. “Without any legitimate excuse whatsoever, the US government builds, day after day, a fraudulent case to justify the ruthless economic war against the Cuban people and the eventual military aggression,” he wrote on X. “Specific media outlets play along, promoting slanders and leaking insinuations from the U.S. government itself.”
“Cuba neither threatens nor desires war,” he added. “It defends peace and prepares itself to confront external aggression in the exercise of the right to legitimate self-defense recognized by the UN Charter.”
Cuba’s Decline
The Axios report comes as the communist government faces one of its most serious internal crises since taking power in 1959. U.S. sanctions, the Trump administration’s oil blockade, and decades of economic mismanagement have left Cuba dangerously short on fuel and power, leading to widespread blackouts and frequent protests from the Cuban people.
Last Thursday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to the country for an unusually public warning to the regime. He reportedly told Cuban officials in a bilateral meeting that the island can no longer be used as an alleged staging ground for America’s enemies, namely China and Russia. The CIA director demanded the regime shut down Chinese and Russian intelligence stations on the island, outposts the U.S. claims are used by the adversarial nations to capture communications.
Cuban officials said they used the meeting to argue that they pose no threat to the United States, as the country faces crippling repercussions from the U.S. oil embargo.
The Legal Element
The pressure campaign has also turned legal. As reported on Thursday’s AM Update, the Department of Justice announced the indictment of 94-year-old former Cuban President Raul Castro, nearly three decades after two civilian planes operated by a humanitarian group were shot down. Five Cuban fighter pilots involved in the incident are also facing charges.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche unveiled the charges during a press conference in Miami Wednesday, where Cuban Americans make up about 30 percent of the population. “Today we are announcing an indictment charging Raul Castro and several others with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals,” he said. “Mr. Castro and the others are charged with additional crimes as well, including destruction of aircraft and four individual counts of murder.”
Blanche said the indictment was returned by a Miami grand jury on April 23 and was unsealed Wednesday. The DOJ alleged the planes were civilian aircraft flying over international waters as part of a humanitarian mission focused on Cuban refugees fleeing the island by sea, while Cuba claims the planes were violating its airspace.
Castro was serving as Cuba’s defense minister in 1996 when the Cuban military fired on two small aircraft operated by Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based group that searched for Cuban refugees stranded at sea. The planes went down over the waters between Cuba and Florida, killing all four men – three U.S. citizens and one legal permanent resident – on board.
The indictment is not particularly subtle in its warning for Cuban officials. Earlier this year, the Trump administration used a federal indictment against former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro as the legal justification for the January raid that removed him from power.
The impending Castro indictment, however, dates back to an event more than 30 years ago, as opposed to the Maduro indictment which was handed down in 2020 and outlined decades of drug-related crimes. Castro also left power in 2021.
What comes next for Castro remains to be seen. South Florida based freelance journalist Juan David Rojas told AM Update the unsealing of the indictment, which was timed to Cuban Independence Day, could go a few ways.
“It looks like they’re moving forward with some sort of Maduro-esque playbook,” he said. “Hard to say if they’ll actually go through with trying to arrest him or maybe some sort of negotiation with the regime to hand him over… [or] maybe nothing comes of it at all. It’s just purely symbolic, but that symbolism is clearly just meant for South Florida and Cuban Americans more broadly.”
The Analysis
On Monday’s edition of The Megyn Kelly Show, Megyn dove deeper into the Axios reporting that she believes “is not getting enough attention today.” Watch:
You can get all the day’s headlines by tuning into the AM Update with Megyn Kelly on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch AM Update on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111).