Announcement of five days of nationwide maneuvers and tactical exercises across the country came nearly simultaneously with Trump’s surprise win. Cuba has announced the launch of five days of nationwide military exercises to prepare troops to confront what the government calls “a range of enemy actions”.

The government did not link the exercises to Donald Trump’s US presidential victory but the announcement of maneuvers and tactical exercises across the country came nearly simultaneously with Trump’s surprise win.

It is the seventh time Cuba has held what it calls the “Bastion Strategic Exercise”, often in response to points of high tension with the United States.

The first exercise was launched in 1980 after the election of Ronald Reagan as US president, according to an official history.

Trump has promised to reverse Barack Obama’s re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba and the ongoing normalization of the relationship between the two countries.

An announcement by Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces in red ink across the top of the front page of the country’s main newspaper said the army, interior ministry and other forces would be conducting maneuvers and different types of tactical exercises from 16 to 20 November.

It warned citizens that the exercises would include “movements of troops and war materiel, overflights and explosions in the cases where they’re required”.

News of Trump’s victory hit hard among ordinary people and experts in US relations with Cuba, which has spent the last two years negotiating normalization after more than 50 years of cold war hostility.

Normalization has set off a tourism boom and visits by hundreds of executives from the US and dozens of other countries newly interested in doing business on the island. Trump has promised to reverse Obama’s opening unless President Raúl Castro agrees to more political freedom on the island, a concession considered a virtual impossibility.

Speaking of Cuba’s leaders, Communist party member and noted economist and political scientist Esteban Morales told the Telesur network: “They must be worried because I think this represents a new chapter.”