Cubans attempted to ‘infiltrate’ island on US speedboat, Havana says

The American speedboat that Cuban officials said opened fire on border agents Wednesday was carrying 10 armed Cubans who were attempting to infiltrate the country “for terrorist purposes,” the country’s Interior Ministry said.

Cuban authorities seized assault rifles, handguns, molotov cocktails, body armor and fatigues from the Florida-registered vessel, the ministry said in a statement late Wednesday. The men on board were Cuban nationals who had been living in the United States, the ministry said.

The speedboat was less than a nautical mile off Villa Clara province on Cuba’s northern coast Wednesday morning when Cuban border agents approached and asked for identification, the ministry said earlier. The men on the speedboat opened fire on the Cuban vessel, the ministry said, wounding its commander.

The Cuban forces returned fire, the ministry said, killing four men aboard the speedboat and wounding six. The wounded were evacuated to receive medical attention.

Cuban authorities named the six survivors and one of the four who were killed. They were working to identify the other three deceased.

The Washington Post could not independently confirm Cuba’s version of events. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was traveling in the Caribbean on Wednesday, said earlier Wednesday that the United States would conduct its own investigation rather than rely on the account of the Cuban government.

“We will verify that independently as we gather more information,” he told reporters in St. Kitts and Nevis, “and we’ll be prepared to respond accordingly.”

The Cuban ministry said the border agents acted in defense of the nation.

“In the face of current challenges, Cuba reaffirms its determination to protect its territorial waters, based on the principle that national defense is a fundamental pillar of the Cuban State in safeguarding its sovereignty and ensuring stability in the region,” the ministry said earlier Wednesday.

The Trump administration has been blowing up private vessels in the Caribbean and the eastern Eastern Pacific Ocean since September. U.S. authorities have reported 42 strikes on boats that they say it says were smuggling drugs, killing at least 143 people. U.S. forces have also boarded and seized ships that officials say it says were carrying Venezuelan oil.

Tensions between Washington and Havana have escalated in recent weeks as President Donald Trump’s effective oil embargo on the communist nation worsens a years-long humanitarian crisis.

After capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a surprise military raid on Jan. 3, the Trump administration took control of Venezuela’s oil exports and banned petroleum deliveries on which Cuba relied.

In an executive order last month, Trump declared the Cuban government’s “policies, practices, and actions” an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security and threatened to impose tariffs on all goods from any country that supplied it with oil.

Rubio was in St. Kitts to attend a meeting of the Caribbean Community, or CARICOM, when he learned of the attack. He said the U.S. Coast Guard was informed by its Cuban counterpart.

“Suffice it to say, it is highly unusual to see shootouts in open sea like that,” he said. “It’s not something that happens every day.

“It’s something, frankly, that hasn’t happened with Cuba in a very long time.”

U.S. Southern Command reported striking three vessels in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific on one day last week, killing 11 people.

Rubio, the Miami-born son of Cuban immigrants, has said the administration hopes its economic chokehold will help topple what he has called the “illegitimate regime” in Havana.

Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, warned this month that the administration’s moves could precipitate a humanitarian “collapse” and urged dialogue. In a shift, the U.S. Treasury Department issued new guidance Wednesday loosening some restrictions on fuel.

Washington has maintained an embargo on most trade with Cuba since 1960, the year after the communist revolutionary Fidel Castro overthrew the government of U.S. ally Fulgencio Batista, and cut diplomatic relations in 1961.

President Barack Obama and Raúl Castro, Fidel’s brother and successor, restored ties in 2015, but the thaw was brief. During Trump’s first term, he canceled much of the diplomatic outreach and ramped up pressure on Havana.

His tariff threat against potential oil suppliers is backed up by U.S. warships deployed in the Caribbean. Mexico quickly canceled shipments, but Russia has sent a tanker loaded with 200,000 gallons of fuel to the island, where it is expected to arrive in the coming week.

Trump and Rubio, a former senator, have both depended on Cuban American voters who oppose the government in Havana for electoral success in Florida. Trump has said that the administration is “talking … to the highest people in Cuba,” although he has not indicated what he wants from its government.

Cuban officials have said that they are open to conversations and that messages have been exchanged, but no significant talks have taken place.

“We have always been willing to maintain a serious and responsible dialogue with the different governments of the United States, including the current one,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel wrote on X last month. But such talks must be based on “sovereign equality, mutual respect, principles of International Law, and mutual benefit without interference in internal affairs and with full respect for our independence.”

Andy Gomez, former director of the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, said the best word to encapsulate the current moment in Cuba’s history is “uncertainty.”

“You have Raúl Castro who is going to be 95 years old in a couple of months,” he said, “and then we have a president of the United States that operates on whims.”

• Adam Taylor contributed.