The island nation will be cut off from Venezuelan oil, according to the US president
US President Donald Trump has asserted that Cuba is on the verge of collapsing “pretty soon.” His remarks followed reports that Washington is considering a complete oil blockade of the island in an effort to provoke a coup against President Miguel Diaz-Canel.
Following the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month, the US has turned its focus to Cuba, which Trump says is “ready to fall” next. While speaking to the press on a trip to Iowa on Tuesday, the president said “Cuba is really a nation that is very close to falling.” He claimed that Havana had been receiving oil and funds from Caracas but would not be getting them “anymore.”
Soon after Maduro’s kidnapping, Trump stated that Washington would “run” Venezuela during a transition and requires “total access… to the oil and to other things in their country.” US Energy Secretary Chris Wright confirmed that Washington plans to manage Venezuela’s oil sales “indefinitely.”
Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, who was inaugurated after Maduro’s capture, vowed that no “foreign agent” would take control of Venezuela or make it a “colony.” Nevertheless, she attempted to appease Washington by allowing American companies into Venezuela’s oil sector.
According to a Politico report last week, the US is preparing an oil blockade against Cuba to put the regime in a “chokehold to kill the regime.” Previously, the Wall Street Journal reported that Washington was seeking insiders within the Cuban government to assist in organizing a regime-change operation before the year’s end.
The US trade embargo against Cuba has been in place since the 1960s, but the nation has not confronted the possibility of a US naval blockade since 1962. That year, President John F. Kennedy imposed a 13-day “quarantine” to stop Soviet missiles from reaching the Cuban military.
Diaz-Canel previously brushed off Trump’s threats, stating that “nobody dictates what we do.” Moscow also denounced what it described as the “language of blackmail and threats” directed at Cuba, along with decades of “illegitimate and illegal sanctions” by the US.