The president assured that he saw no room to toughen the policy against the regime much more without escalating to direct military action.
MIAMI, United States. – The president of the United States, Donald Trump, affirmed this Thursday that the Cuban Government “is hanging by a thread” and that it is going through “big problems,” while maintaining that the pressure on Havana is already maximum “unless the hell that is the place is entered and bombed,” in an interview with journalist and host Hugh Hewitt.
Trump made those comments when Hewitt asked him if it was time to “increase the pressure” on “that police dictatorship” and even raised the possibility of “quarantining” it as Washington had done with Venezuela. The president responded that he saw no room to tighten the policy much more without escalating to direct military action: “I don’t think there can be much more pressure than going in and bombing the hell that is the place,” he said.
In his response, Trump linked the internal situation of the Cuban regime with the deterioration of its relationship with Venezuela and assured that the Island depended on that support. “Their lifeblood, their entire life, was Venezuela. They got their oil. They got their money from Venezuela,” he said.
The president also referred again to the recent operation in Venezuela and stated that in that action there were no deaths on the American side, while “many Cuban combatants lost their lives”. “Many. Many,” he insisted.
Then, when faced with a direct question from Hewitt about whether Miguel Diaz-Canel could “fall” as, in a hypothetical scenario, Iranian leader Ali Khamenei could, Trump responded affirmatively and expanded his diagnosis of the fragility of the regime. “Yes. I think Cuba is hanging by a thread. Cuba is in big trouble,” he declared.
Trump described the Cuban government as an actor that obtained income from “protection” work and described the Cubans in glowing terms, although he maintained his criticism of the political power on the island. “Cuba got all its money for protection. They were like a protector. They are tough, strong people. They are great people,” he said.
In that section, the president also made a reference to the Secretary of State, the Cuban-American Marco Rubio, and joked with the interviewer about his performance in office. “Marco has some Cuban blood. I think Marco is not doing a bad job, right?” Trump asked.
Even so, the president qualified his prediction about an eventual collapse of the regime and acknowledged that these types of predictions have been repeated for decades. “I think Cuba is really in a lot of trouble. But, you know, people have been saying that for many years, to be fair, about Cuba,” he said. Then he added: “Cuba has been in trouble for the last 45 years and (…) it is not done falling. But I think it is pretty close of its own accord.”
The conversation about Cuba was part of a broader interview in which Hewitt discussed issues such as Iran, China, the US Supreme Court and domestic politics with Trump. The exchange on the Island focused on two axes: whether Washington should increase pressure against Havana and whether the Díaz-Canel Government could be close to falling.
