United States | News & Politics

The move comes as President Trump is ratcheting up his rhetorical assault on Cuba’s leadership.

March 6, 2026

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The U.S. attorney in South Florida has ordered a broad-ranging inquiry into Cuba’s leaders and Communist Party officials for drug, immigration, economic and violent crimes with a goal of bringing fast indictments, according to three people with knowledge of his actions.

The move comes as President Trump is ratcheting up his rhetorical assault on Cuba’s leadership, and has gone so far as to recently suggest that he might attack the island nation 90 miles off the Florida coast after he is finished with the Iran war.

Bringing criminal cases against Cuban leaders could provide a legal and political pretext for such action, just as the Justice Department’s indictment against Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, was used to justify his capture and extradition.

If the administration does in fact seek charges against Cuba’s leaders to facilitate a snatch-and-grab operation inside Cuba like that against Mr. Maduro, it would be an extraordinary use of the criminal justice system to advance the White House’s geopolitical agenda.