The prospect of US military intervention in Cuba surfaced again this week as President Donald Trump told Axios an operation was “possible,” citing the island’s proximity to US territory. The remarks coincided with the unanimous approval by Cuba’s National Assembly of a sweeping package of economic reforms that would permit private banks, foreign investment in real estate and the sale of state enterprise shares to private actors. It is the most significant restructuring of the Cuban economy since the early revolutionary era, yet it arrives under conditions of extreme US pressure that Havana describes as a “total blockade.”

From Washington, the Trump administration has assembled what officials in the region describe as a maximum-pressure architecture: an energy embargo that has all but halted oil deliveries, fresh tariffs on nations supplying fuel to the island, the prosecution of former president Raúl Castro over a decades-old incident involving exile aircraft, and a stated readiness to evaluate military contingencies. Administration figures point to the role of Secretary of State Marco Rubio in managing a dialogue that they claim Havana desires, but the public tone remains combative. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth warned Cuba last week against seeking advanced weaponry, saying it would “invite confrontation you could not withstand.”

Within Cuba, President Miguel Díaz-Canel defended the reforms as an existential necessity to preserve socialism, not a capitulation to the United States. “We must produce wealth; without wealth, there is no social justice,” he told the Communist Party central committee. For the first time a senior leader publicly acknowledged that internal “obstacles”—bureaucracy, delays, restrictive norms—bear part of the blame for the crisis, not merely US sanctions. The measures, which also include eliminating the 100-employee cap on private firms and gradually phasing out universal subsidies, are modelled on the Chinese and Vietnamese experience of market openness under one-party rule. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, meanwhile, denounced what he called “a plan of economic asphyxiation” that is “similar to a military blockade,” highlighting that foreign firms have been coerced into withdrawing from Cuban energy and hotel ventures and that several regional governments have ended medical cooperation under US pressure.

The twin pressures—the US coercive apparatus and the island’s internal dysfunction—have translated into electricity blackouts lasting up to 72 hours in some provinces, a projected economic contraction of at least 6.5% this year, and the departure of major operators such as Canadian mining firm Sherritt and Spanish hotel groups Meliá and Iberostar. Washington’s May 1 executive order threatening sanctions on any foreign entity doing business in key sectors has effectively sealed off energy-related commerce. In this environment, the reform package risks being undercut by the very sanctions it is designed to counteract. The National Assembly vote, described by analysts as a rubber stamp, leaves unanswered how quickly the nearly 200 measures will be translated into legislation and enforcement. With no formal military decision announced and no reliable indicator of the reforms’ fate, the confrontation remains frozen in a cycle of threat and counter-threat.