foto: Bill Hackwell
By Geraldina Colotti on February 4, 2026
Donald Trump’s recent decree against Cuba, which defines the island as an “unusual and extraordinary threat to U.S. national security and foreign policy,” is not extemporaneous insanity or a simple electoral calculation. It is the reaffirmation of an imperial genetic code that knows no party alternation. Using the same legal formula adopted by Barack Obama in 2015 against Bolivarian Venezuela, Washington confirms that its strategy of aggression does not depend on the tenant of the White House, but on the permanent interests of the so-called Deep State.
The Anatomy of Power: Who Really Commands in Washington?
To understand the continuity between Obama’s “smile” and Trump’s “fist,” it is necessary to identify the real forces that constitute the American deep state, a structure that acts above the popular vote to ensure the reproduction of capital and global hegemony.
The heart of the empire is the military-industrial-financial complex. Defense giants like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon or Northrop Grumman need constant tension in the Caribbean or open conflicts to justify defense budgets that already reach trillions of dollars. Behind them are the giants of speculative finance like BlackRock and Vanguard, the true shareholders of the war.
Another essential component is the intelligence community: agencies like the CIA and NSA operate on opaque budgets and ensure the continuity of “regime change” and sabotage operations, regardless of the presidents’ election promises.
Central axis is also the technological-media complex: modern hybrid warfare is fought through data control (Silicon Valley) and manipulation of the narrative, aimed at criminalizing leaders like Maduro or the historical direction of the Cuban Revolution.
Another fundamental pillar is the bureaucracy of the “revolving door”: the mechanism by which the same characters pass from the domes of the think tanks (such as the Atlantic Council) to the boards of directors of the multinationals, and from there to key positions in the State Department.
In this scheme, the figure of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is emblematic. Graham is not a mere politician; he is the “medical visitor” to the military-industrial complex within Congress. It represents the organic bridge between visible politics and the interests of the Deep State.
As the Pentagon’s top internal lobbyist, Graham is the architect of the legislative consensus for sanctions and escalating war. His obsession with “communism” or “21st century socialism” is not only ideological, but functional: it serves to identify an enemy that justifies the expansion of imperial power. Graham is the one who translates the needs of arms manufacturers and high-finance into international threats and emergency decrees, ensuring that the national security agenda remains unchanged over time.
The link between Obama’s 2015 decree and Trump’s decree against Cuba today is the question for example. For the deep state, Cuba and Venezuela are “unusual threats” not because of their military force, but because they demonstrate the possibility of a development model outside the control of the dollar.
Imperialism cannot tolerate spaces of sovereignty. Just as in 1945 the use of atomics in Hiroshima was an act of “atomic diplomacy” to intimidate the Soviet Union, today these decrees are tools of “blackmail diplomacy.” They seek to break the solidarity axis between Havana and Caracas to restore monopoly control over the resources of the region.
As Cuba prepares for Fidel Castro’s 100 years in 2026, the deep state tries to smother the island’s memory and future with new sanctions and destabilization experiments. However, this offensive clashes with a reality that Washington, in its imperial blindness, fails to understand: the validity of Joseph Marti’s thinking and the project of continental unity of Simon Bolivar.
The real “threat” that imperialism tries to neutralize by emergency decrees is none other than the example of sovereignty of the peoples who have decided to close the passage to the Monroe Doctrine. As José Martí warned in his political will, Cuba’s independence is the necessary barrier to prevent the United States from spreading through the West Indies and to fall, with that extra force, on our lands of America.
Today, the strategic alliance between Havana and Caracas is not only a cooperation agreement, but the practical realization of that “balance of the world” sought by the Cuban Apostle and the Liberator. In the face of a permanent Washington apparatus that, through figures like Lindsey Graham, aims to impose a new Judicial and Financial Condor Plan, the Cuban and Venezuelan resistance reaffirms that the sovereignty of our America is not negotiated before any decree.
History is not written in the laboratories of the social control of the Pentagon, but in the trench of dignity of those who, in the heritage of Bolívar and Martí, defend the indispensable right to self-determination.
Today, the strategic alliance between Havana and Caracas is not only an economic agreement, but the practical realization of the balance of the world. In the face of a permanent Washington apparatus that, through figures like Lindsey Graham, intends to impose a new Judicial and financial Condor Plan, the Cuban and Venezuelan resistance reaffirms that the freedom of “Mother America” is not negotiated under the boot of any decree. History, far from ending up in the laboratories of social control, continues to be written in the trench of dignity, where Bolívar and Martí walk today with the peoples who defend their right to exist.
Source: Macvenezuela, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English