CIA Sets Up Secret Cuba Task Force as Trump's Pressure Campaign Escalates

The CIA has stood up a new task force focused on Cuba, according to reporting from Politico and separately confirmed by the New York Times, both citing officials and people familiar with the effort who were not authorized to speak publicly.

The task force is layered on top of what Politico reporters Dasha Burns and Nahal Toosi described as a quiet buildup of intelligence officers and assets on the island over recent months. Neither outlet, nor the CIA, White House, Defense Intelligence Agency, or Office of the Director of National Intelligence, will confirm specifics on numbers, methods, or units involved. All four agencies declined to comment when asked by Politico.

Cuba has been without reliable fuel since Trump imposed an oil blockade earlier this year, according to Ground News. The country's power grid has suffered repeated nationwide blackouts, including one in early August that had Havana scrambling to reconnect the capital, per Reuters photography from the scene.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has refused to step down despite the pressure. The administration's public position, laid out in a nearly 100-page State Department report published July 20 titled "Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism," calls the island's government the center of a hemispheric subversion network tied to Russia, China and Iran. Ground News reports that report also linked Cuba to a network of left-leaning organizations and individuals it accuses of running a "sustained campaign of subversion" against the United States.

The pressure campaign isn't just intelligence work. Officials cited by Ground News say it includes sanctions, fuel restrictions, and an offer of $100 million in aid tied to specific reforms Havana would have to make.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also acting National Security Advisor and is of Cuban descent, has taken personal ownership of Western Hemisphere policy under Trump. Rubio was already given responsibility for managing the aftermath of the January 3 operation in Venezuela that removed President Nicolas Maduro, an operation Trump said would leave the U.S. "running" that country for an indefinite transition. Politico's sourcing suggests Rubio wants Cuba added to that portfolio and is not optimistic diplomacy will work.

Trump has repeatedly said Cuba is on the brink of collapse and has suggested the U.S. is prepared to intervene militarily to force a change in government. Politico's sources told the outlet the administration does not believe it needs to resolve the standoff with Iran before acting on Cuba, which suggests the timeline isn't contingent on other fronts cooling off.

CIA operations in Cuba have historically been hampered by so-called Havana Syndrome, the unexplained neurological symptoms reported by U.S. personnel stationed there and elsewhere going back to 2016. Ground News notes sources told Politico the expanded footprint is partly an attempt to work around that history. No U.S. government body has definitively identified a cause for Havana Syndrome, and this remains an open scientific and intelligence question, not a settled one.

Coverage of this story splits sharply by ideological lens. The Canary, a left-leaning outlet, frames the task force as aimed squarely at "the overthrow of the 'communist' state," treating regime change as the confirmed goal rather than an inference. Global Voices' translation of Spanish-language reporting frames it similarly, saying U.S. teams are seeking information "at a time when a military operation is not ruled out." Neither framing is contradicted by the underlying reporting, but neither is it confirmed on the record by any named U.S. official. What's actually established: a task force exists, intelligence assets have increased, and no agency will discuss objectives. Everything about ultimate intent, regime change versus negotiated reform versus simple deterrence, remains inference from anonymous sourcing, not documented fact.

The strongest case for skepticism about "invasion is coming" framing is that the U.S. government has taken a hard line on Cuba for six decades without direct military action, and an intelligence buildup is not itself a declaration of war. The strongest case for taking the threat seriously is that Trump already moved on Maduro in January after similar reporting patterns preceded that operation, and Rubio's own State Department has now published nearly 100 pages calling Cuba an active national security threat.

What happens next is genuinely unresolved. No public timeline exists for any additional U.S. action, covert or otherwise. Diaz-Canel has given no indication he intends to step aside, and Cuba's fuel and power crisis continues without resolution as of this week. Whether the $100 million aid offer tied to reforms gets any traction in Havana, or whether the task force's work escalates toward the kind of operation Trump has hinted at, is the question nobody in Washington will answer on the record.