Hegseth warns Cuba against acquiring weapons in visit to Guantánamo Bay

Pete Hegseth meets with troops at the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on 10 June. Photograph: Phil Stewart/Reuters View image in fullscreen Pete Hegseth meets with troops at the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on 10 June. Photograph: Phil Stewart/Reuters Hegseth warns Cuba against acquiring weapons in visit to Guantánamo Bay US defense secretary continues ramp-up of pressure against country including sanctions and devastating oil blockade Pete Hegseth has warned Cuba against acquiring weapons that could threaten the United States, during a visit to the US military base at Guantánamo Bay. No electricity, no gas, no sleep: Cubans on edge amid endless outages “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. The 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 Guantánamo 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 the Cuban foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, accusing the United States of baselessly plotting for its next war. In addition to Guantánamo, Hegseth was due also to travel on Wednesday to Tampa, Florida, the headquarters of US Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US forces in the Middle East, including operations against Iran. The trip to Guantánamo is the second , after another early last year, and is the latest in a series of visits to the island . Late last month, the top US general overseeing operations in Latin America visited Guantánamo, where he met with Cuban military leaders. Two weeks earlier, the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, visited Havana and met with Cuban officials. Guantánamo Bay, 430 miles (700km) south-east of Miami, on the south-eastern coast of Cuba, is the site of a notorious facility for prisoners detained after the 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 immigrants who are being deported from the United States.