Our Tuesday Sociedad Media Now newsletter focusing on the latest news & developments in U.S.-Latin America Relations.
Trump Says U.S. Will “Take Care of It” If Iran Has Drones in Cuba
MIAMI — President Trump’s July 13 warning that Washington will “take care of it” if Iran has stashed drones in Cuba lands amid an active U.S.-Iran military confrontation, giving new weight to intelligence first reported in May 2026 that Cuba has quietly amassed over 300 Iranian- and Russian-made attack drones — including the long-range Shahed-136 — capable of reaching Guantánamo, Key West, and Miami.
Sociedad Media traces the threat, paired with deliberate invocations of the 1962 Missile Crisis by figures like Jeb Bush and Ambassador Mark Wallace, is pushing U.S.-Cuba relations to their most adversarial point in six decades, even as Havana neither confirms nor denies the drones and offers no immediate response to Trump's remarks.
For Sociedad Media’s readers tracking the region’s security landscape and U.S.-Cuba relations, the piece frames an unresolved but escalating standoff: a presidential threat without proof or timeline, layered onto an already aggressive sanctions campaign, a CIA warning visit to Havana, and mounting rhetorical comparisons to Cold War brinkmanship.
Mexico’s Flagship Refinery Is Running at 42% Capacity As PEMEX Scandal Involves Washington
MEXICO CITY — A newly notarized 4.8-billion-peso lease contract for Mexico’s troubled Dos Bocas refinery has reignited scrutiny of AMLO’s signature energy sovereignty project just as it operates at only 42% of its designed capacity, four years and over $20 billion after construction began.
Covering the refinery’s cascade of failures — from skipped design phases and altitude-mismatched blueprints to fatal fuel leaks, a 370-mile Gulf Coast oil slick, and repeated shutdowns, Sociedad Media examines how the scandal now threatens President Claudia Sheinbaum, who inherited the project and has no politically clean way to distance herself from it or defend it.
With the third round of USMCA negotiations set for July 20 in Mexico City, the piece frames Dos Bocas as more than a domestic energy failure: it’s a documented, notary-validated example of institutional dysfunction that Washington can leverage at the negotiating table, testing Sheinbaum’s carefully managed relationship with the Trump administration at a critical moment.
