Cuba’s Economy Teeters On The Brink. U.S. Officials Are Reportedly Looking At Military Options

Top U.S. officials are evaluating different options for possible military action against Cuba as the country teeters on the brink of collapse, according to a new report.

CBS News detailed that military planners have examined different options, including an Army-led assault by the 101st Airborne Division.

The officials highlighted that briefings are not an indication that military action is near or that President Donald Trump has made a final decision.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. prefers a diplomatic option to usher in new leadership in the island, but so far the Havana regime and its “corrupt elites” continue refusing reform and “perpetuating their total control.”

The U.S. has kept on sanctioning the Cuban regime and its institutions. Havana officials have said that they are a pretext to conduct a military intervention.

Cuba’s Ambassador to the U.S. Lianys Torres Rivera told The Associated Press in June that the measures seek to convince the American people that “we are a threat.”

“We are not a threat to the U.S., and we don’t want confrontation,” she added, claiming that Washington is already conducting a “war without bombs” through economic pressure.

Cuban leader Raul Castro was indicted in May over the downing of two civilian aircraft in the 1990s. According to the indictment, Castro was charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, four counts of murder and two counts of destruction of aircraft.

Torres Rivera called Castro a “sacred symbol of the revolution” and said the country will defend him and the country “until the end.”

“If we are attacked, we are going to respond, and we are prepared for that. But we don’t want it,” she said.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has made similar remarks, saying that the accusation “reveals the arrogance and frustration felt by the representatives of the empire in the face of the unshakable resolve of the Cuban Revolution and the unity and moral strength of its leadership.”

“This is a political action with no legal basis whatsoever, aimed solely at adding to the fabricated case file they are building to justify the recklessness of a military aggression against Cuba,” he added.

In the meantime, the country’s national electric grid collapsed for the third time in just nine days on Tuesday, plunging millions of residents into darkness as authorities struggle to stabilize an aging power system amid severe fuel shortages.

The collapse follows two previous nationwide outages earlier this month, on July 6 and July 10, highlighting the increasingly fragile state of Cuba’s electricity network. The latest failure represents the fifth major nationwide blackout since March.