US strike on Cuba by December 31?

This market is pricing roughly even odds that the U.S. conducts at least one drone, missile, or air strike on Cuban territory by December 31, 2026. The event resolves under very specific rules about what counts as a qualifying “Yes.” To resolve “Yes,” there must be a U.S.-initiated aerial strike (drone, missile, or bomb) that physically hits Cuban land—rivers, ports, and lakes count. However, territorial sea does not—and it has to be credibly reported and time‑stamped within the window; interceptions, naval shelling, cyberattacks, or ground clashes alone do not qualify. So far, Trump has tightened sanctions, moved toward an oil blockade, indicted former leader Raúl Castro, and deployed the USS Nimitz carrier group and other assets into the Caribbean as a visible show of force, all while publicly musing that he might be the president who finally “does it” on Cuba. At the same time, reporting from the Pentagon and regional commands consistently stresses that current moves are calibrated signaling and contingency prep rather than a green‑lit operation, and even hawkish analysts frame “off‑distance” strikes as plausible options, not inevitabilities. For traders, that tension between increasingly war‑like rhetoric and force posture, versus still‑credible paths to an economic deal or prolonged standoff without kinetic action, is what keeps Yes around the mid‑50s rather than at an obvious extreme in either direction