Cuba and the U.S. Drug War: The Story Washington Isn’t Telling You

The Trump administration seems to be careening toward war in the Caribbean under the banner of stopping drug trafficking. It’s an open secret that its real objective is oil and regime change in bothVenezuela and Cuba. It’s also been widely reported that Venezuela is not the real source of drug problems in the United States.

But what few journalists are covering – and what nobody in the Trump administration dares acknowledge – is that for years Cuba has arguably been the U.S. government’s most reliable regional ally in counternarcotics efforts. We expose the uncomfortable (for Marco Rubio) truth about Cuba’s long track record of protecting U.S. borders from drug trafficking even as Washington tries to undermine its government.

In this new report, in which Belly of the Beast journalist Liz Oliva Fernández breaks down the hypocrisy of the Trump administration’s war on drugs and how Cuba is not exporting drugs to the United States – it is actually stopping them from getting there.

TRANSCRIPT

“You’ve heard it nonstop: Venezuela. Drugs. Maduro. ‘Narco-states’,” said journalist with Belly of the Beast.

“This new war on drugs is framed as a threat to America’s borders, even though everyone knows it’s really about oil and regime change. Washington keeps blaming Venezuela for drugs, but it’s silent when it comes to another country: Cuba. Not because Cuba is exporting drugs to the United States, but because Cuba is stopping drugs from getting there.”

“But in 2025, something changed. Marco Rubio took over foreign policy. Full-on regime change became the goal in Venezuela and Cuba. And suddenly, Washington’s own facts no longer match its story,” added Oliva.

“The United States Coast Guard has always maintained close relations with the Cuban government, especially with the Interior Ministry and the Cuban Border Guard,” said Alejandro Collazo, U.S. Coast Guard official.

“When the United States is busy elsewhere, it wants its southern flank secure,” explained Hal Klepak, military historian and former NATO analyst. “The major securing element on that southern flank is Cuba, whether it likes it or not.”

“Cuba has always been open to cooperating with U.S. forces, especially the U.S. Coast Guard, not only in fighting drug trafficking, but also terrorism and human trafficking,” a Colonel Sergio Ortiz, Cuban official stated.

“According to the State Department’s own 2024 counternarcotics report, drug traffickers don’t go through Cuba. They avoid it,” said Liz.

“Cuba is not a producer, a storage hub, or a transit point for drugs destined for other countries,” said Colonel Juan Carlos Poey, head of the Anti-Drug Unit at Cuba’s Interior Ministry.

“Cocaine in the Caribbean moves mainly through U.S. allies: the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Haiti, and Jamaica, countries flagged for corruption and weak enforcement,” said the journalist.

“The most efficient partner of the United States in security terms in Latin America is Cuba,” Klepak emphasized.

“Already this year, Cuba intercepted 14 boats carrying drugs and detained 39 traffickers. The State Department itself acknowledges that Cuba frequently reports drug trafficking to the U.S. Coast Guard,” said Liz.

“We provide information in real time,” said Colonel Ybey Carballo, Chief of Cuba’s Border Guard. “We give details about the boats: how many engines, how many crew members. We’ve sent 1,547 messages to the U.S. Coast Guard and received 468 in return.”

Liz Oliva said: “The country Washington calls an enemy is actually its most effective partner against drug trafficking. Surprised? So was I”.

“Two years ago, I saw it with my own eyes,” said Liz Oliva Fernández. “I reported on the seizure of a drug trafficking vessel off eastern Cuba. A U.S. Coast Guard official was there, and he had nothing but good things to say about Cuba.”

“I’d say we talk with the Cubans more than once a week,” the official added.

“So what happened between 2023 and 2025? The shift didn’t come from new intelligence. It came from politics, led by Marco Rubio,” said Liz.

“When you are pushing drugs toward the United States of America, you are a direct threat to the national security and national interest of the United States,” Rubio declared.

“Except Cuba is not pushing drugs to the U.S. The opposite is true,” said Liz.

“The country that sends the most drugs into our national territory, specifically synthetic cannabinoids, is the United States,” said Colonel Poey.

“So does that mean the U.S. is a national security threat to Cuba? That’s something I haven’t heard Marco Rubio talk about, added Liz.

Asked how he responds to U.S. politicians who call Cuba a national security threat, Colonel Carballo replied, “I can’t comment because I don’t really know those politicians. As a military officer, very few of them have ever sat down at the table with me.”

“So guess what Rubio’s State Department said about Cuba in its 2025 counternarcotics report? Nothing. From 2024 to 2025, Cuba was essentially erased from the report,” the narrator continued. 

“It simply didn’t fit the Trump administration’s narrative about drugs. And the truth about Cuba isn’t the only thing that doesn’t fit that narrative. If the Trump administration truly has a zero-tolerance drug policy, why did it pardon a former president convicted in a U.S. court of large-scale cocaine trafficking? Why attack Venezuela, when drugs from there make up a small share compared to Colombia, Mexico, or the Dominican Republic? Why cut cooperation with the country that has been the United States’ most effective partner against drug trafficking in the Caribbean? And above all, who benefits from breaking something that’s working?,” said Liz. ”

“We have cooperation,” a Cuban Interior Ministry official said. “But as you know, the countries’ relations are complicated.”

“Thank you for the work you all do,” a U.S. Coast Guard official told his Cuban counterparts. “I hope to return one day, not because of drugs, but to have a coffee, sit at the table, and share best practices.”

“I don’t think that coffee will come anytime soon,” the narrator concluded.

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