Cuba’s leader has pushed again on Donald Trump’s demand that the Caribbean nation “make a deal” with Washington, as the US president warned that Havana can be reduce off from the Venezuelan oil and cash that it’s relied on for many years.
“No one dictates what we do,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel stated Sunday on X, responding to Trump’s insistence that the communist nation do a deal “before it’s too late.”
Cuba has lengthy acquired huge support packages from oil-rich Venezuela, however the seize of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro throughout a US operation, and Trump’s announcement that Venezuela will flip over 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil to the US, is anticipated to depart Havana with an financial problem.
“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!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.
“THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO!” he stated earlier than making the demand for a deal. Trump didn’t elaborate on what a deal with Havana might contain.
The Cuban authorities has stated 32 of its residents have been killed “in combat actions” throughout the US operation to seize Maduro.
Díaz-Canel was fast to reject exterior interference in Cuba’s affairs.
“Cuba does not aggress; it is aggressed upon by the United States for 66 years, and it does not threaten; it prepares, ready to defend the Homeland to the last drop of blood,” stated Díaz-Canel.
In an obvious reference to Trump, he stated those that flip all the pieces into a enterprise, “even human lives,” don’t have any ethical authority to level fingers at his nation.
Earlier, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez asserted the nation’s “absolute right” to import gas from financial companions with out US interference and rejected Trump’s declare that Cuba exchanged safety providers for Venezuelan oil and cash.
“The US is behaving like a criminal and uncontrolled hegemon that threatens peace and security not only of Cuba and this hemisphere but of the entire world,” Rodriguez stated.
In subsequent feedback aboard Air Force One, Trump advised reporters the US was “talking to Cuba” however it was not instantly clear at what stage discussions are happening.
In his feedback Trump stated that one of the matters he wished addressing was “the people that came from Cuba that were forced out or left under duress.”
The US has long wanted regime change in communist Cuba, a nation ruled by a socialist political system since 1961, primarily based on the “one state, one party” precept.
A key supporter of regime change inside Trump’s cupboard is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who got here of age immersed in Miami’s exile neighborhood, rising politically inside a tradition the place reminiscences of the island and a deep worry of socialism remained highly effective forces.
Havana residents voiced blended reactions following Trump’s risk to reduce off Venezuelan oil shipments to the island.
Paola Perez advised Reuters that Cuba isn’t to blame for US-Venezuelan relations, however that Cuba can be “affected, quite a lot.”
“He (Trump) knows perfectly well that he has to find a solution, because he can’t just take over Cuba like that,” she added.
Another resident, Luis Alberto Jimenez, advised the outlet that he’s not scared by Trump’s risk to reduce off Cuba’s oil provide.
“At no point does that scare me because I’m prepared,” he stated. “The Cuban people are prepared for anything, any situation that may arise, for everything. We are prepared for that.”
“The whole committee has to make a decision because it is the people who are suffering,” Maria Elena Sabina advised Reuters, calling for swift motion to alleviate shortages on the island.
“There’s no electrical energy right here, there’s no energy right here, there’s no fuel right here, no liquefied fuel. There’s nothing right here. So… the place is the oil that Venezuela or Mexico was sending?
NCS’s Steve Contorno and Julia Benbrook contributed to this report.