The Morning Report — 2/13/26

Good morning kids. No triskaidekaphobia here... In taking down the Maduro regime in Venezuela and reinvigorating the Monroe Doctrine, President Trump has perhaps put himself in a bit of a pickle?

Russia has indicated it will defy U.S. sanctions and other restrictions enacted by U.S. President Donald J. Trump against the exportation of oil to Cuba. In what the Kremlin is describing as a “humanitarian” arrangement, the Russian Embassy in Havana states that “as far as we know, Russia is expected to supply oil and petroleum products to Cuba as humanitarian aid in the near future.”The decision by the Russian government comes as Cuba faces its worst energy crisis in at least a decade. Following the ouster of Venezuela’s Marxist dictator, Nicolás Maduro, by the U.S. military earlier this year, Cuba lost a key supplier of oil and fuel, turning what was already a dire situation facing the Caribbean island’s communist government into an unprecedented crisis.

Of course Russia has had a longstanding relationship with Cuba going back to the Soviet era as a forward base of communism right on our doorstep so to speak. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Estern bloc, the Cuban economy has essentially been on life support, propped up by the Latin American Communist dictatorships that both the Soviets and the Castro regime helped foster over the past 66 years. And with Maduro gone and much of Latin America turning away from socialism towards freer and more open societies, Cuba might very well be at long last on the verge of liberation.

Aside from the aforementioned longstanding ties, My guess is that Putin is trying to use Cuba as a way to leverage a more advantageous outcome with Ukraine vis a vis the supposed peace negotiations.

So the question is, weird as it is the same as it was in 1963 during the Cuban missile crisis, what will the US Navy do if it encounters a Russian tanker or cargo ship heading towards Cuba on the high seas?

Russia is at best a major rival if not a strategic enemy of the United States, but what the hell is Mexico's excuse?

Two Mexican Navy ships docked in Cuba on Thursday carrying humanitarian aid for the Caribbean island nation in the middle of a severe energy crisis.

The ships carried hundreds of tons of food and supplies. The Mexican government said that one ship contained 536 tons of food – including milk, beans, sardines, and cookies – while the other contained about 277 tons of powdered milk, according to the Associated Press.

The arrival of aid comes weeks after President Donald Trump increased pressure on the Cuban economy, threatening tariffs against any nation that supplies Cuba with oil. Cuba has since instituted increasingly strict rules around the use of its remaining fuel supplies. . .

. . . “The energy pressure that Trump is exerting on Cuba places Mexico in a dilemma that is very characteristic of its entire history of diplomatic relations with the United States and Cuba,” Cuban historian Rafael Rojas told The Guardian. “Mexico is yielding to the demands of the United States – and on the other hand it maintains its solidarity with the island.”
. . . “I don’t think it’s any mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime, who, by the way, are the ones that were propping up Maduro,” (Secretary of State Marco)Rubio said the day after Maduro’s arrest.

We took out Maduro because he was running tons of lethal drugs into America and had very close ties with both the Chi-Coms and the Iranians, all of which posed an incredible threat to our national security as well as the safety of our citizenry. Considering the illegal alien border invasion, the destruction and chaos that has come from Mexico for decades is arguably orders of magnitude worse!

Mexico's leader, Claudia Scheinbaum is an avowed socialist and no great fan of America. So, if we seize some Mexican ships or send them down to Davy Jones' Locker, what of it?

I certainly hope the long-suffering Cuban people can at long last taste freedom and move their country forward. To see the heads of leftists and Commies here explode as the statues and murals of the Castros, Marx and Lenin are dynamited and sledgehammered off the walls of Cuban buildings is just too delightful to anticipate.

¡Viva Trump, y Cuba Libré Ahora y Por Siempre!

Have a great weekend!

And lastly, a quick shout-out and a huge thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.

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posted by J.J. Sefton at 06:50 AM

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