Fuel blockade. Economic collapse. CIA deadline. Criminal indictment of the head of state. Carrier group. Washington ran this sequence before. On May 20 — Cuban Independence Day — it unsealed an indictment of Raúl Castro and deployed the USS Nimitz. The playbook is open.
The United States opened talks with Cuba by first threatening economic strangulation. Washington framed it as leverage. Havana called it coercion. The distinction matters: negotiations conducted under explicit threat produce agreements that last only as long as the threat does.
