President Donald Trump appears to have his sights on Cuba after threatening the country to make a deal with the US ‘before it is too late’.
The Republican leader took to Truth Social Sunday morning, warning the communist regime, run by President Miguel Díaz-Canel, that it will no longer receive oil or money from Venezuela following the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
Cuba has long depended on Venezuela’s hefty oil supply, but after Maduro was nabbed last week by the US, Trump got interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez to send the country’s oil to America.
‘THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,’ the commander-in-chief said.
Trump added: ‘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 weeks U.S.A. attack, and Venezuela doesn’t need protection anymore from the thugs and extortionists who held them hostage for so many years,’ he continued.
The president’s comment refers to the US attack in Venezuela that left 100 people dead, including 32 members of Cuba’s military and intelligence service who guarded Maduro.
According to Venezuelan officials, the dictator’s security team was killed ‘in cold blood’.
But, according to Trump, Venezuela now has America ‘to protect them’ while Maduro languishes at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center on narco-terrorism and drug charges.
‘Venezuela now has the United States of America, the most powerful military in the World (by far!), to protect them, and protect them we will,’ Trump insisted.
Following the daring arrest of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and the massive shake-up in Venezuela, US intelligence officials have predicted a grim economic and political outlook for Cuba.
A report by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) predicts that the potential loss of support and oil imports from Venezuela would drastically affect the country, Reuters reported.
Just last week, Trump called Cuba ‘a failing nation’.
‘I think Cuba is going to be something we’ll end up talking about, because Cuba is a failing nation right now, very badly failing nation, and we want to help the people,’ Trump said when asked if the operation in Venezuela contained a message to the island nation.
‘That system has not been a very good one for Cuba,’ the president continued. ‘The people there have suffered for many, many years.’
After Joe Biden removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism last year, Trump quickly reinstated the designation within his first days in office and reapplied economic sanctions.
The US-Cuba relationship remains strained as the island nation is under a strict embargo, preventing goods from reaching the socialist state.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is the son of Cuban refugees who fled during the nation’s communist revolution, doubled down, warning that the nation’s leadership should be worried.
‘Suffice it to say, you know, Cuba is a disaster,’ Rubio said at the press conference. ‘It’s run by incompetent, senile men.’
‘If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned, at least a little bit,’ the secretary of state added.
Cuba isn’t the only place on Trump’s radar, as he has repeatedly threatened to invade Greenland following the upheaval in Venezuela.
On Saturday, the US president ordered his special forces commanders to draw up a plan to take over the Danish territory.
Sources told the Daily Mail that the policy ‘hawks’ around the US President, led by political adviser Stephen Miller, have been so emboldened by the success of the operation to capture Maduro that they want to move quickly to seize the island before Russia or China makes a move.
British diplomats believe that Trump is also motivated by a desire to distract American voters from the performance of the US economy before the mid-term elections later this year, after which he could lose control of Congress to the Democrats.
However, such a dramatic move would put him at odds with the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, and would effectively lead to the collapse of NATO.
According to the sources, the President has asked the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) to prepare the invasion plan, but it is being resisted by the joint chiefs of staff on the grounds that it would be illegal – and would not be supported by Congress.
One source said: ‘They have tried to distract Trump by talking about less controversial measures, such as intercepting Russian ‘ghost’ ships – a clandestine network of hundreds of vessels operated by Moscow to evade Western sanctions – or launching a strike on Iran.’
Meanwhile, Trump has remained defiant and said he will not back down from trying to snatch Greenland.
The president was asked how much money could be offered to purchase the territory after Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly told lawmakers that Trump’s intention was to buy it.
Trump told reporters Friday that he’s not ‘talking money’ with regard to Greenland yet, but he may do so in the future.
‘Right now we are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not because if we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland and we’re not gonna have Russia or China as a neighbor.’
The president said that he would like to make a deal ‘the easy way’ to acquire Greenland.
‘If we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way,’ Trump said, without explaining what the ‘hard way’ entailed.
