This past Sunday, Raúl Torres, a staunch supporter of the Cuban regime, took to Facebook with an elaborate post titled "Cuba, in the Eye of the Storm." In it, he unfurled a dramatic display of warlike imagery—complete with allusions to crocodiles, war drums, mythical beasts, and silent missiles—to caution the "gentleman from the North" that "the heart of the empire will bleed too." His post reads like a grandiose revolutionary epic, yet, as is typical for Torres, it remains disconnected from the harsh realities faced by the Cuban populace.
The catalyst for Torres' poetic outburst was former President Trump's statement during a private dinner at the Forum Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Friday. Trump remarked that, after military operations in Iran, he would deploy the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier to within 100 yards of Cuba's coast, forcing the regime to capitulate with a "thank you, we surrender."
Without wasting a moment, Torres sprang into action, armed with a barrage of metaphorical weaponry. "The drums of an aircraft carrier, announced at 100 yards from our Malecon, are not party drums, my friend. They're the funeral march for sanity," penned the troubadour, who never misses a geopolitical crisis—or a notable death—as an opportunity for a protest song.
In his passionate prose, Torres paints Trump with "the senile coldness that characterizes him" and asserts that Washington has failed for over sixty years to unravel "the mystery of our psyche." The Cuban, he proclaims with unbridled epic fervor, "when cornered, doesn't flee. He transforms." A powerful image indeed, yet it stands in stark contrast to the fact that 93% of Cubans on the island would emigrate if they had the chance.
Contradictions and Realities
The crescendo of Torres' rallying cry comes as he warns that Cuba would be "a silent missile, undetectable by radar, headed straight for the heart of the United States," emphasizing that "if Havana explodes, the shrapnel... the pent-up fury of an entire island will cross the Florida Strait faster than any rocket." Ninety miles of ocean, he notes with geographic disdain, "is truly just a puddle." Poetic, indeed. Intimidating, perhaps. But utterly disconnected from the reality where 89% of Cuban families live in extreme poverty.
While Torres conjures the image of an indomitable people turning their despair into resistance, power outages in several Cuban provinces exceed 20 hours a day, 25% of Cubans go to bed without dinner, and 29% of families have cut a meal from their daily intake. Alas, these harsh truths don’t rhyme as well as "cornered animal."
Past Performances and Current Challenges
This isn't Torres' first foray into revolutionary theatricality that ends up as meme fodder. In March, he mounted a Ministry of Armed Forces tank, striking a martial pose in what the Tank Division described as a union of "art and defense," which was met with a wave of online mockery. His repertoire also includes "Patria o Muerte por la Vida" (2021), an official retort to the opposition anthem "Patria y Vida," which garnered over 48,000 dislikes on YouTube and was labeled by Google as the worst song of that year.
On Friday, Miguel Díaz-Canel declared that "no aggressor will break Cuba," while Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla sardonically echoed Trump's words. True to his role as the regime's artistic mouthpiece, Torres joined the chorus with his customary bombast. The U.S. pressure has resulted in over 240 sanctions since January 2025 and an energy embargo that slashed Cuban oil imports by 80% to 90%.
Torres concludes his post with a sentiment that encapsulates the text's spirit: "We don't want pity, we want respect. We don't want alms, we want peace." Noble words. Yet, Díaz-Canel himself admitted this week that Cubans "will eat" only "if we are capable of producing," suggesting the regime that Torres glorifies in his lyrics has failed to solve even the most basic issues for decades. Indeed, 80% of Cubans believe the current crisis is worse than the Special Period of the 1990s.
But Torres has drums to beat and crocodiles to transform into missiles.
Exploring Raúl Torres' Rhetoric and Cuba's Realities
What sparked Raúl Torres' recent Facebook post?
Raúl Torres' post was sparked by former President Trump's remarks about deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln near Cuba's coast after operations in Iran.
How does Torres characterize Trump's attitude towards Cuba?
Torres describes Trump with "the senile coldness that characterizes him" and asserts that the U.S. has failed to understand Cuba's psyche for over sixty years.
What is the reality for many Cubans compared to Torres' depiction?
While Torres depicts an indomitable spirit, the reality is that many Cuban families face extreme poverty, with widespread power outages and food shortages.