From Bay of Pigs to Speedboats: Trump Still Doesn’t Get It

There are moments when the class character of imperialist aggression reveals itself with brutal clarity. February 25, 2026, was one such moment. Cuban border guards intercepted a Florida-registered speedboat just one nautical mile off Cayo Falcones in Villa Clara province. The vessel carried ten armed Cuban exiles operating from U.S. soil. 

 

When the patrol approached to enforce sovereignty, the infiltrators opened fire. Cuban forces defended themselves, killing four − including at least one U.S. citizen − and wounding six. 

 

Weapons, ballistic vests and military-style equipment were seized. Havana correctly described it as a foiled “armed infiltration for terrorist purposes.” Washington, as always, denied any government role. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called it “not a U.S. operation” and announced yet another “independent investigation.”

This is not an isolated incident. This is the latest chapter in U.S. imperialism’s six-decade war to crush the Cuban Revolution − the very same criminal methods the CIA employed against Fidel Castro and Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara.

Let us recall the historical record without embellishment.

In April 1961, U.S. imperialism sent 1,400 CIA-trained mercenaries to invade Cuba at Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs). They expected the Cuban people to welcome their “liberators.” Instead, the revolutionary militias − led on the battlefield by Che Guevara himself − destroyed the invasion force in 72 hours. The defeat was total and humiliating for the empire.

Yet Washington did not learn. Under the criminal code-name Operation Mongoose (1961-1963), the CIA launched hundreds of sabotage missions, bombed civilian targets in Havana, and carried out at least eight documented assassination attempts against Fidel Castro − exploding cigars, poison pills, contaminated diving suits, even an exploding conch shell. They recruited the Mafia to do their dirty work. When those plots failed, they turned their guns on Che.

In 1967, in the mountains of Bolivia, CIA-trained Bolivian rangers, advised on the ground by Bay of Pigs veteran Felix Rodriguez, captured Che Guevara. They executed him the following day, severed his hands as trophies, and paraded the body like a hunting prize. Washington celebrated the murder of one of the greatest internationalist revolutionaries of the 20th century.

The parallels with the February 25, 2026 speedboat raid are not coincidental − they are systemic.

Then: Florida-based exiles, armed and directed by the CIA, set sail to attack sovereign Cuban territory. Now: A Florida-registered speedboat, loaded with armed exiles from the same counter-revolutionary networks, attempts infiltration.

Then: Washington denied direct involvement while the CIA pulled the strings. Now: Rubio denies government involvement while the State Department “investigates.”

Then: The strategic objective was to assassinate the revolutionary leadership and install a puppet regime serving U.S. monopolies. Now: The objective remains exactly the same − to overthrow the socialist government and transform Cuba into a neoliberal colony.

The only addition in 2026 is the intensified economic war. Following the U.S.-orchestrated ouster and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January 2026, Washington imposed a total oil blockade on Cuba. Venezuelan tankers were seized. Third countries were threatened with sanctions. The island’s fuel supplies − already strangled by the 65-year criminal blockade − collapsed. Hospitals rationed diesel. Blackouts lengthened. The speedboat raid was launched precisely when the Cuban people were being deliberately starved into submission.

This is classic imperialist logic: strangle the revolution economically, then send in the armed provocateurs. Donald Trump and his fascist administration do not “fail to learn history.” They consciously reject its lessons because those lessons expose the limits of imperialist power. Trump tweets about the “failed Castro regime” as if the Bay of Pigs never happened, as if Che’s heroic example never inspired millions across Latin America, Africa and Asia, as if the Missile Crisis never demonstrated that Cuba cannot be broken by threats and blackmail.

The Cuban people have already defeated invasions, blockades, biological warfare, and decades of terrorist attacks that murdered thousands of civilians. They defeated them through the heroism of their revolutionary armed forces, through proletarian internationalism, and through the unbreakable conviction that their socialist homeland belongs to the workers and peasants − not to Wall Street.

The 2026 speedboat provocation exposes once again the bankruptcy of U.S. imperialism. Unable to win the battle of ideas, unable to offer the peoples of the world anything but exploitation and misery, the empire resorts to the gunboat and the blockade. When these fail − as they failed at Playa Giron, as they failed against Che − they simply tighten the noose and call it “democracy promotion.”This is not foreign policy. This is gangsterism on a state level.

The blood spilled in the waters off Cayo Falcones stains the hands of the same U.S. ruling class that ordered Che’s murder and the Bay of Pigs invasion. They have learned nothing because they cannot afford to learn. To learn would mean admitting that a small socialist island has the sovereign right to exist outside the sphere of imperialist domination. To learn would mean abandoning the dream of turning every country in Latin America into a client puppet state.

The Cuban people have every right to defend their revolution by any means necessary. The U.S. government has no right to send armed exiles, impose genocidal blockades, or threaten invasion. Every progressive, anti-imperialist and working-class force in the United States must raise its voice: End the criminal blockade! Stop the provocations!

The empire’s desperate aggressions are the death throes of a decaying system that still believes the Caribbean is its private lake. Cuba has shown the world how to resist. Now the international working class and all progressive forces must match that courage with concrete solidarity. From the streets of Miami to the factories of Detroit, the message must ring out loud and clear: Cuba is not for sale. Cuba will never be a puppet. The revolution lives − and it will triumph.

Hands off Cuba!

¡Patria o Muerte — Venceremos!

 Nathan Richardson