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Published: 15 May 2026

The CIA Director’s Visit to Havana: An Ultimatum in Broad Daylight

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The sight is repulsive on its face. A high official of the United States government, the world’s leading democracy, sitting across the table from the uniformed architects of one of the Western Hemisphere’s longest-running tyrannies. Yet context, timing, and deliberate symbolism transform what might appear as mere engagement into something far sterner: a public ultimatum to the Castro regime. Change your political system, or we will change it for you—by whatever means necessary.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana on May 14, 2026, meeting not with the regime’s civilian figureheads but with its military and intelligence brass. Present were Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas, the head of Cuban intelligence, and Raúl Guillermo “Raulito” Rodríguez Castro, grandson of the 94-year-old dictator Raúl Castro. The visit occurred against the backdrop of Cuba’s collapsing energy sector, with the island announcing it had exhausted fuel oil supplies for domestic use and power plants. Another variable that weighs against the communist dictatorship is the mounting public display by Cuban society of discontent with the system and regime that cause these ills.

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Published: 08 May 2026

The End of Sherritt: A Victory for Helms-Burton and the Power of Targeted Sanctions

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After more than three decades of open defiance, Sherritt International—the Canadian company dubbed by Bloomberg in 1995 and once hailed as Fidel Castro’s “favorite capitalist”—has been forced out of Cuba. On May 7, 2026, Sherritt announced the immediate suspension of all its direct operations in the island’s joint ventures. The trigger was President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14404, signed on May 1, which expanded sanctions on key sectors and imposed secondary sanctions on foreign banks dealing with blocked Cuban entities. What the Cuban regime celebrated as an exemplary partnership for 35 years collapsed in a single week. This outcome powerfully validates the Helms-Burton Act, particularly its Title III, and demonstrates that sustained, targeted American sanctions against the Castro-Communist regime deliver concrete results by starving it of hard currency.

Sherritt’s journey into Cuba exemplified a deeply concessionary capitalist relationship that fused the regime’s control of expropriated resources with Western capital, technology, and market access. Founded in 1927 as Sherritt Gordon Mines Limited, the company faced near insolvency by 1990. Under Ian W. Delaney—who openly displayed a family photo with Castro and called Cuba his favorite—it turned to Havana in 1991 amid the Soviet collapse and Cuba’s “Special Period.” The linkage of the Moa nickel deposit and Cuba’s processing capacity with Sherritt’s Alberta refinery and its access to low-cost energy proved a stroke of genius for both parties. In December 1994, Sherritt formed a 50/50 joint venture with Cuba’s Compañía General de Níquel de Cuba. The partnership quickly proved profitable, posting $14.3 million in earnings on $131 million in sales in its first quarter.

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Published: 01 May 2026

A Tale of Two Cities: Havana and Washington on May Day

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May 1, 2026, exposed two radically opposing political realities unfolding ninety miles apart. In Havana, the Cuban communist dictatorship attempted to stage its annual revolutionary spectacle amid visible fear, militarization, and growing insecurity. In Washington, the United States escalated its confrontation with the Castro-Communist regime through a sweeping executive order targeting the financial, political, and repressive architecture sustaining the dictatorship. The contrast was striking: one government desperately trying to manufacture the illusion of monolithic support; the other formally declaring the Cuban regime a continuing threat to U.S. national security and democratic values.

In Havana, the regime had originally planned a massive May Day mobilization at the Plaza Cívica — the monumental square later renamed Plaza de la Revolución after Fidel Castro consolidated communist rule. Historically, the plaza has served as the dictatorship’s preferred stage for choreographed demonstrations of revolutionary unity, giant propaganda rallies, and displays of ideological obedience. But this year, the regime abruptly relocated the main event to the so-called “Anti-Imperialist Tribune” in front of the U.S. Embassy. The explanation offered by state propaganda was predictable revolutionary theater. The real reasons were far more revealing.. 

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Published: 17 April 2026

Crush Castroism Now to Finish Islamic Iran

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The Islamic Republic of Iran is reeling. Its senior leadership has been decapitated, its missile factories and air defenses lie in ruins, and its conventional military capacity has been gutted. Yet, the regime refuses to fall. Instead, it has pivoted to classic asymmetric warfare: proxy provocations, hostage diplomacy, and relentless media manipulation. Tehran understands that its survival now depends less on battlefield victories than on narrative control. It needs the world’s cameras fixed on Iran, Beirut, and the Persian Gulf so it can play the victim, drag out negotiations, and portray the United States as the desperate party begging for a deal.

This is not speculation. It is the Vietnam playbook updated for the 21st century. The communists in Hanoi never defeated U.S. forces in open combat, but they won the war in American living rooms. Iran is betting the same strategy will work again. Every day the Middle East dominates the news cycle is another day the ayatollahs buy to regroup, rearm through smuggling networks, and wait for American political fatigue to set in. The result is already visible. Washington looks anxious for any face-saving agreement, while Tehran smells weakness. Nothing short of full regime change can assure the West of an end to the possibility of a nuclear jihadist state. 

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