“There will be no more oil or money going to Cuba. Zero!” warned the president of the United States, Donald Trump.
LIMA, Peru – The president of the United States, Donald Trump, published a message this Sunday on his account Social Truth recommending that the Cuban regime negotiate “before it is too late.”
The president recalled that the Island was sustained, for many years, by large amounts of oil and money from Venezuela. In exchange, Castroism provided “security services” to the last two Venezuelan dictators, Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro.
“But not that anymore!” Trump emphasized. “Most of those Cubans are dead because of last week’s US attack, and Venezuela no longer needs protection from the thugs and extortionists who held it hostage for so many years.”
Since the beginning of the close Cuba-Venezuela alliance in the early 2000s, the Cuban regime systematically denied having troops, intelligence agents, security personnel or military operations in Venezuelan territory.
But Washington’s operation to capture Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Representative Cilia Flores, on January 3, broke down the farcesince Havana was forced to recognize the death of 32 Cuban agents who were part of the dictator’s security ring.
In this regard, Trump’s message warns that Venezuela now has the protection of the United States and its army, the most powerful in the world.
“There will be no more oil or money going to Cuba. Zero! I strongly suggest that you reach an agreement before it is too late,” the president stressed.
Cuban-American Congressman Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.) shared Trump’s post via the social networkadding his own warning to the Island’s tyranny.
“The dictatorship in Cuba is warned. Its time is numbered. Don’t you say that you shouldn’t mess with Cuba? Well, you don’t play with the United States. Get ready. God, Homeland and Freedom. Long live Cuba Libre! God bless America!” he wrote.
Castro regime: in the spotlight
Trump’s attention to the island has intensified in recent weeks, especially after Maduro’s capture. Just last Thursday, in an interview with the journalist and host Hugh Hewitt, the president affirmed 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.”
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 confirmed that the Island depended on that support. “His lifeblood, his entire life, was Venezuela,” he said.
Then, in response to 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.
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.”
