WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Sunday warned Cuba to “make a deal” or face unspecified consequences, cautioning that the flow of Venezuelan oil and money to Havana would now stop.
“THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO!” Trump said on his Truth Social channel. “I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”
His remarks come a week after US forces seized Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro in a nighttime operation in Caracas that killed dozens of Venezuelan and Cuban security forces.
Earlier on Sunday Trump reposted a message suggesting that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio could become the president of Cuba.
Trump shared that post with the comment: “Sounds good to me!”
In his own post soon afterwards, Trump said that “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 week’s U.S.A. attack, and Venezuela doesn’t need protection anymore from the thugs and extortionists who held them hostage for so many years.”
Under a US trade embargo, Havana since 2000 has increasingly relied on Venezuelan oil provided as part of a deal struck with Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez.
On Saturday, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel publicly denounced the United States military intervention in Venezuela as an assault on the nation, accusing Washington of aggression towards the country, seizing President Nicolas Maduro in the middle of an active rally before the US Embassy in Havana.
Díaz-Canel termed the operation as the act of state terrorism and a heinous crime against international law and he called on the international community to take action against the way he described it as criminal aggression.
