Overview
- Cuba announced nationwide mobilization and defense exercises after officials said 32 Cuban soldiers were killed during the U.S. operation in Venezuela.
- U.S. forces captured Nicolás Maduro and his wife to be tried in New York on narcotrafficking charges, accompanied by a State Department message declaring, “This is our hemisphere.”
- The administration said Venezuela will stop selling oil to Cuba, a cut estimated at 26,000–28,000 barrels per day from the island’s roughly 100,000 bpd demand.
- Energy specialists warn the reduced Venezuelan supply could deepen Cuba’s power crisis, with one expert calling a shortfall below 100,000 bpd “catastrophic.”
- Policy documents and commentary describe a new Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine that leans on economic coercion and pragmatic deals with Maduro-era power holders.