President Trump says the U.S. “may visit Cuba” after the Iran war ends
President Donald Trump said the United States “may stop in Cuba after we finish” the Iran war.
- A U.S. military surveillance drone was tracked as it flew along the Cuban coast for several hours.
- The drone circled near Guantanamo Bay and Havana before returning to a naval base in Florida.
A U.S. military surveillance drone flew along the coast of Cuba for several hours, according to flight tracking sources, an unusual sighting on the Caribbean island.
According to Flightradar 24, an online global flight tracking service, a U.S. Navy surveillance drone MQ-4C Triton with the call sign BLKCAT6 took off from a naval base in Jacksonville, Florida, on April 16, flew along Cuba’s southern coast, made a holding pattern near Santiago de Cuba, and then another holding pattern near Havana before returning to the United States.
The flight near the Cuban coast took more than six hours, the service said.
Flight Radar 24 spokesperson Ian Pechenik told USA TODAY that similar drones have previously been tracked in combat zones around the world, from the Black Sea to the Persian Gulf. But this is the first time he remembers tracking one near Cuba.
The U.S. military did not immediately respond to inquiries about the drone flight near Cuba.
The Navy recently confirmed that an MQ-4C deployed to the Iran war crashed on April 9th.
Pechenik said his forces tracked similar drones around Venezuela last year as the U.S. military ramped up its forces there in preparation for a dramatic Jan. 3 raid to capture former President Nicolas Maduro.
“We pursued them in the Black Sea, the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf with the Ukraine war,” Pechenik said. “Everywhere the U.S. government needs a surveillance platform.”
The discovery of the drone flight comes amid rising tensions between Havana and Washington. Military plans for a possible Pentagon-led operation in Cuba are being quietly advanced in case President Donald Trump orders intervention there, officials recently told USA TODAY.
The Trump administration has tightened long-standing sanctions and cut oil exports to Cuba as part of a broader campaign to force sweeping political changes on the communist-ruled island. Already in deep economic crisis, the near-total lockdown is pushing the country towards collapse. The White House also threatened to impose tariffs on countries that supply Cuba with oil, including Venezuela and Mexico, and added Cuba to the list of countries that sponsor terrorism.
In recent weeks, President Trump has hinted that he would soon have the “honor” of “occupying Cuba in some way,” adding: “I think I can do whatever I want with Cuba, whether it’s liberating it or taking it.”
Over the past year, the U.S. military has stepped up its use of unmanned aerial vehicles in missions across the Caribbean and South America.
Last year, the Pentagon used MQ-9 Reaper drones to fire missiles at suspected drug-trafficking vessels in the Pacific and Caribbean, according to The War Zone, an online site that reports on military technology and strategy.
And the same drone that flew near Cuba on Thursday, an MQ-4C Triton, flew a 10-hour reconnaissance mission near Venezuela in January from the same Naval Base Jacksonville, Flightradar 24 reported.
The MQ-4C Triton is an autonomous, high-altitude, high-endurance maritime aircraft manufactured by Northrop Grumman with a range of 7,400 nautical miles and the ability to fly for more than 24 hours at more than 50,000 feet, according to the manufacturer’s website.
The exact mission of the April 16 drone flight is unclear, but Pechenik said the MQ-4C is typically deployed for surveillance purposes. That day, the plane remained in the air about 40 miles off the coast of Santiago de Cuba for just under two hours, then returned to Cuba’s southern coast and spent another two hours circling the airspace about 45 miles off the coast of Havana, he said.
It left the area at approximately 6:22 p.m. ET.
Follow Jarvis on X: @MrRJervis.
