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.

Washington has ramped up pressure against Cuba with sanctions and a devastating oil blockade, and Donald Trump has repeatedly signaled that the Cuban government could be the next after Venezuela to fall to US pressure.

“It would be unwise for the government of Cuba to try to procure or get access to the types of weapons that could reach this base or the American homeland,” the US defense secretary said in remarks to US troops at the base in south-eastern Cuba.

“They would be inviting the kind of confrontation not only do they not want, but they could not stand,” said Hegseth, dressed in a green T-shirt and black shorts for physical fitness training with US forces.

“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 by Hegseth as Pentagon chief, after another early last year, and is the latest in a series of visits to the island by top US officials.

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 11 September 2001 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.