Photo: Alamy
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said Sunday that Cuba poses a national security threat to the United States, arguing that the island continues to host Chinese and Russian intelligence operations near American territory.
Speaking on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Waltz said the Trump administration intends to take a tougher approach toward the Cuban government.
“The Cuban regime is not only a threat to its own people, it’s a national security threat, and this administration’s not going to stand for it any longer,” Waltz told host Maria Bartiromo.
Waltz accused China and Russia of maintaining intelligence operations in Cuba.
He said the two countries “still have intelligence posts, signals, collection posts and military officers in Cuba right off our shores.”
“But they’re no longer in Venezuela,” he continued. “They’re no longer in south Central America, in the way that they were, on the march, even in the Panama Canal, under the Biden administration and previous administrations.”
The Trump administration has taken an increasingly hard line toward Cuba in recent months.
In May, CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with Cuban officials to deliver a message from President Donald Trump regarding U.S. policy toward the island.
At the time, the CIA said Ratcliffe “personally deliver[ed] President Trump’s message that the United States is prepared to seriously engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also said around that time that he did not believe a negotiated agreement with Cuban officials was likely.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel responded by warning against any U.S. military action after reports emerged that Cuba had developed plans involving drones and the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
The comments came one day after the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who had been one of the Senate’s strongest advocates for a tougher U.S. policy toward Cuba.
Graham had publicly called for regime change on the island and, in a social media post in May, wrote, “I believe the liberation of the wonderful people of Cuba from the clutches of communism is close at hand.”
