Cuba Responds To Trump’s “Takeover” Map

By Staff Writer, NewsAmericas Now

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Weds. Sept. 9, 2026: Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel responded Tuesday to President Trump’s AI-generated map depicting Cuba and other territories under the US flag, declaring the island “will never again” be a colony of any “empire.”

“Cuba knows well the meaning of having been a colony and neocolony of two empires,” Díaz-Canel wrote on X, without explicitly naming Trump’s post. “The blood that has been shed for our independence, sovereignty and self-determination will not have been in vain, and we will defend them to the last consequences.”

Trump published the map on Truth Social, showing the American flag’s colors covering Mexico, Canada, Cuba, Greenland, Iceland, and parts of the wider Caribbean and Central America, including Cuba, Jamaica, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Haiti. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez responded with sharp sarcasm, warning the US government would leave its own citizens “geographically disoriented.” “Soon they will not know in which gulf, lake, building, country, continent or planet they are,” Rodríguez wrote.

Amid the highest US-Cuba tensions in decades

US President Donald Trump during the Steel Across America tour on the Ellipse of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. Photographer: Annabelle Gordon/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Cuba’s response comes as relations with Washington face their most severe strain in decades. The Trump administration has pursued a “maximum pressure” campaign against Cuba since early 2026, including an oil blockade and secondary sanctions introduced in May that have discouraged foreign companies from operating on the island. Washington has also kept the possibility of military intervention on the table as an ongoing concern for Havana.

Rodríguez said that the US economic embargo cost Cuba $8.08 billion between March 2025 and February 2026, the highest 12-month total on record and 7% more than the previous year, calling the measures “cruel collective punishment” against the Cuban population. Cuba’s economy contracted 15% between 2020 and 2025, with independent forecasts projecting a further contraction of up to 10.3% this year amid an ongoing energy crisis.

President Trump posted an AI-generated map depicting the American flag superimposed over the United States, Canada, Mexico, Greenland, Iceland, and Caribbean islands – all relabeled simply as the “United States of America,” triggering diplomatic backlash and renewed public questioning of his fitness for office, according to The Hill.

The map, posted to Truth Social without caption or explanation, redrew continental North America entirely within the stars and stripes, with the Gulf of Mexico labeled the “Gulf of America” in line with an earlier executive order. It followed a weekend in which Trump posted at a rapid pace: 60 times on Sunday alone, according to an AFP count, followed by 37 more posts within roughly 10 hours on Monday, many featuring AI-generated or AI-manipulated images, including one claiming the Moon belonged to the US and another relabeling New Mexico as “New America.”

A pattern of territorial rhetoric

The map follows Trump’s repeated prior suggestions that Canada become the 51st US state, his stated interest in acquiring Greenland from Denmark, and his talk of “taking back” the Panama Canal. But the inclusion of Mexico, Iceland and several Caribbean territories in the latest map marks a new expansion of that rhetoric, The Hill reported. It also comes amid active US-Canada trade tensions, with both countries recently imposing tariffs on each other’s goods; Trump separately signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to “Lake America.”

Countries push back

Several of the countries depicted in the map responded swiftly. Iceland said it had summoned the US ambassador, describing the post as “entirely inappropriate.” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum rejected the map directly on X: “We are a free, independent and sovereign nation,” she wrote, adding Mexico would be neither a colony nor a protectorate of another country. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen reiterated Denmark’s opposition to any US takeover of Greenland, telling reporters that both Greenland’s government and its people had repeatedly made clear they did not want to become American.

Iceland’s Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir summoned U.S. Ambassador Billy Long to her office on Monday to “convey a clear message that the image was wholly inappropriate,” according to a statement.

“There was a reason to call the ambassador to a meeting and present a very clear message on our part that this was completely unacceptable,” she added Tuesday.

“I have been repeatedly advised by within the American administration that we should perhaps not take the current U.S. president literally, but we should take him seriously,” Gunnarsdóttir said. “That is exactly what we are doing and emphasizing that Iceland is sovereign, it is an independent state that is responsible for its own destiny.”

The map’s inclusion of Haiti added to the irony noted by observers online: even as Trump’s administration continues deporting Haitian nationals and has stripped Temporary Protected Status from roughly 350,000 Haitians earlier this year, his map depicted the country as part of an expanded American territory. Neither Jamaica, Haiti, nor France, of which Martinique and Guadeloupe are integrated overseas departments, responded.

Online mockery and fitness questions

The post drew widespread ridicule online alongside renewed speculation about Trump’s fitness for office. California state Senator Scott Wiener called the behavior “unbelievably dangerous,” alleging Trump had a “serious brain disease, whether dementia or something else.” Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree argued Republicans should be asking whether Trump remains fit to serve, and social media users noted the irony of the posts given years of Republican criticism of former President Biden’s age. It remains unclear whether Trump intended the map as a joke, a provocation, or simply an attempt to generate attention.

NewsAmericasNow will continue tracking Caribbean nations’ response to Trump’s territorial rhetoric.