Zürcher Nachrichten - Pentagon chief visits Guantanamo, warns Cuba against threatening US

Washington has ramped up pressure against Cuba with sanctions and a crippling oil blockade, and President Donald Trump has repeatedly signaled that the Cuban government could be the next to fall to US pressure, after Venezuela in January.

"It would be unwise for the government of Cuba to try to procure or get access to the types of weapons that could reach this base or the American homeland," Hegseth said in remarks to US troops at the base.

"They would be inviting the kind of confrontation not only do they not want, but they could not stand," said Hegseth, dressed in a green t-shirt and black shorts for physical fitness training with US forces.

"What happens with the future of Cuba is in the hands of... the president of the United States and the leadership of Cuba," he said.

US media outlet Axios reported last month that Cuba had obtained more than 300 military drones and recently began discussing plans to use them to attack the Guantanamo base, US military vessels and possibly even Florida.

Cuba has been acquiring attack drones from Russia and Iran since 2023 and is seeking to buy more, US officials told Axios.

Havana slammed the report, with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez accusing the United States of baselessly plotting for its next war.

- Official visits -

After Guantanamo, Hegseth visited the Tampa, Florida headquarters of US Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, including operations against Iran.

Hegseth addressed troops there, saying of Iran: "As the president said today, (if) they're not going to make a deal, then we're going to hit them hard."

The trip to Guantanamo is the second by Hegseth as Pentagon chief, after another early last year, and is the latest in a series of visits to the island by top US officials.

Late last month, the top US general overseeing operations in Latin America visited Guantanamo, where he met with Cuban military leaders.

The US military said at the time that the meeting by General Francis Donovan was "a brief exchange on operational security matters."

"Gen. Donovan also led a perimeter security assessment of the naval base and discussed force protection, safety of service members and their families, and operational readiness with base officials," US Southern Command added.

Two weeks earlier, CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited Havana and met with Cuban officials.

Guantanamo Bay, 430 miles (700 kilometers) southeast of Miami, on the southeastern coast of Cuba, is the site of a notorious facility for prisoners detained after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The prison has been used to indefinitely hold detainees seized during the wars and other operations that followed the attacks.

Conditions there have prompted outcry from rights groups, and UN experts have condemned it as a site of "unparalleled notoriety."

Trump has also sought to use the base as a holding center for migrants who are being deported from the United States.

J.Hasler--NZN