Photo: Alamy
As global tensions ebb and flow, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth arrived on Wednesday in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he visited with U.S. troops.
The secretary arrived at Guantanamo Bay ready to engage in PT with the troops, sporting a casual T-shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes. In a video posted by the Department of War, Hegseth was later seen speaking to assembled servicemen on base.
“It’s an honor to be here at Guantanamo Bay,” he said. “I was here 20 years ago, serving as a soldier as part of the detention mission. This was then and is here today – a very important and strategic piece of American terrain.”
Hegseth said the Department of War’s visit on Wednesday was meant to check in on the military site, to “make sure it’s as strong as it can possibly be, that you have everything you need to be, and that the world understands, that American might – whether it’s 9,000 miles or 90 miles away from our shores – is the greatest in the world and prepared to go on offense or defense at any moment to defend our interests.”
The secretary’s visit comes amid repeated hints within the Trump administration over the past months, suggesting that Cuba could be next on the list of U.S. military conquests.
“Cuba’s next, by the way,” President Trump remarked in March, just after launching the war against Iran. “But pretend I didn’t say that, please.”
Hegseth told troops on Wednesday that the “future of Cuba is in the hands of the President of the United States and the leadership of Cuba.”
He said that the DOW would be prepared, regardless, “for any possible contingency.”
Recently, the U.S. Department of State tightened its grip over Cuba, announcing new sanctions against the Cuban government and murky military operations.
The Department of Justice also indicted former Cuban President Raúl Castro in May, over his alleged link to a plot that resulted in the deaths of three U.S. citizens aboard a plane operated by a humanitarian organization in 1996, RSBN previously reported.