US President Donald Trump has said in a purported radio interview that he would “certainly consider” using military force against Cuba and wants to “get Cuba done” before leaving office in 2029, remarks that raise fresh questions about Washington’s pressure campaign against the island. In the Thursday phone interview with conservative host Hugh Hewitt of Salem News Channel, Trump was asked whether he was considering “freeing Cuba” through a military intervention; he replied that he wanted to “get Cuba done before I leave” and that the US regime was “watching it very closely,” according to the account of the interview.
Key Takeaways: Trump allegedly said he would “certainly consider” military force and set a 2029 timeline, the first such timeline reported by Politico. He claimed Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose parents are from Cuba, “would love to do it,” and said he won wide Cuban-American support in Florida. The remarks come amid a de facto US oil blockade, sanctions and repeated blackouts in Cuba, with Cuban officials calling the measures “collective punishment.”
The interview comments are part of a longer escalation by the US regime, which in January imposed a de facto oil blockade after the US seized Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, and cut off Venezuelan oil to the island. Trump signed an executive order declaring Cuba an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the US and threatened tariffs on any country supplying it with fuel, measures that have coincided with repeated nationwide blackouts, fuel and food shortages and a humanitarian crisis. Washington has also added sanctions, including on Cuba’s state oil company, President Miguel Diaz-Canel and relatives of former President Raul Castro, and announced a new round this month targeting 10 people and entities tied to the government, military and oil industry.
In the interview, Trump described the island as “essentially a failed … place, nation, whatever you wanna call it” and said he wanted to act “for the people, for the Cubans that came and were treated really badly, and they came to America.” He added that he won the Cuban vote in Florida by a wide margin. Politico reported that it was the first time Trump had put a timeline on a possible operation. The US regime has also issued an arrest warrant for Castro, while officials from both sides have held talks on the blockade; Cuba’s foreign minister said in June there had been “no progress.”
Trump has repeatedly threatened to topple authorities in Cuba. On Monday, he said Cuba “will fall fairly soon” and that the US would help it “on a humanitarian basis”; in March, he said he believed he would have “the honour of taking Cuba” as the island’s power grid collapsed. In March, the head of US Southern Command told senators that US troops were not rehearsing for an invasion of Cuba, while Cuban officials said the island was ready for any attack.
The latest remarks are likely to intensify scrutiny of the US regime’s intentions, especially because no formal operation has been announced and military officials have publicly denied invasion preparations. Cuban authorities have rejected the pressure campaign as “collective punishment” and say the island is prepared for any attack. For now, the next signals to watch are whether Washington moves beyond rhetoric, how Rubio’s role is defined and whether talks on the blockade produce any change.
Source: www.aljazeera.com