(AFP) – US President Donald Trump urged Cuba on Sunday to “make a deal” or face unspecified consequences, drawing an angry retort from its leader who said “no one” tells the communist-ruled country what to do. The island nation near Florida has been a US foe and ally of Caracas for decades, but Trump has ramped up his threatening language in recent days—particularly after Washington toppled Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolas Maduro.
“THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO!” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.” Trump provided no details about what potential deal he referred to, or what such an arrangement would achieve. His remarks come a week after US forces seized Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Maduro in a nighttime operation in Caracas that killed dozens of Venezuelan and Cuban security forces.
A week ago, Trump stated that “Cuba is ready to fall,” noting that the island’s economic crisis was worsening and that it would be difficult for Havana to “hold out” without receiving heavily subsidized Venezuelan oil. Earlier on Sunday, the president reposted a message suggesting US Secretary of State Marco Rubio—a child of Cuban immigrants—could become the president of Cuba. Trump shared that post with the comment: “Sounds good to me!”
In a separate message soon afterwards, Trump said that “Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of OIL and MONEY from Venezuela. In return, Cuba provided ‘Security Services’ for the last two Venezuelan dictators, BUT NOT ANYMORE!” “Most of those Cubans are DEAD from last week’s U.S.A. attack, and Venezuela doesn’t need protection anymore from the thugs and extortionists who held them hostage for so many years.”
Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel rebuffed Trump’s threatening language, saying the Caribbean island’s residents were “ready to defend the homeland to the last drop of blood.” “Cuba is a free, independent and sovereign nation. No one tells us what to do,” Diaz-Canel wrote on X. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez also weighed in to stress that Cuba is within its rights to import fuel from any willing exporter, “without interference or subordination to the unilateral coercive measures of the United States.”
– ‘Beginning of the end’ –
Under a US trade embargo, Havana since 2000 has increasingly relied on Venezuelan oil provided as part of a deal struck with Maduro’s predecessor, the firebrand leftist Hugo Chavez. Trump’s provocative language on Cuba comes as the emboldened American leader has hinted he has other countries in his sights after capturing Maduro. Trump, who had openly sought last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, has recently threatened Colombia, Mexico, Iran, and Greenland.
Some Republican US lawmakers on Sunday lauded Trump for his aggressive comments on Cuba, including Mario Diaz-Balart, a US congressman from Florida. “We are witnessing what I am convinced will be the beginning of the end of the regime in Havana,” Diaz-Balart posted in Spanish on X. “The tyranny in Cuba will not survive the second term of President Trump, and Cuba will finally be free after decades of misery, tragedy, and pain.”
© 2024 AFP
