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Topics: Donald Trump
Phoebe Tonks
Topics: Donald Trump
Donald Trump has already hinted at his next potential target, as he sets his sights on ‘severely weakened’ Cuba for a potential US takeover.
The US President boldly declared he would have the ‘honour of taking Cuba’ after a US imposed oil blockade plunged the Latin American nation into total darkness.
While discussing how his negotiations with Havana had been going so far, Trump boldly claimed he could do ‘anything he wants’ with the country.
“You know, all my life I’ve been hearing about the United States and Cuba. When will the United States do it?” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday.
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“I do believe I’ll be … having the honour of taking Cuba,” Trump added. “Whether I free it, take it – think I could do anything I want with it. You want to know the truth. They’re a very weakened nation right now.”
Just a short while after his comments, a new report emerged in the New York Times which reported that US officials had told Cuba to remove its president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, according to four unnamed sources who were reportedly present at the negotiations.
The renewed attention on Cuba comes just two months after Trump ousted Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro and assumed control of the South American nation. Maduro and his country had been one of Cuba’s most vital foreign benefactors, making his absence all the more gruelling.
In a further blow to Cuban stability, Trump also cut off all oil supplies from Venezuela heading to Cuba, and even threatened to heavily tariff any foreign nation that attempted to send them oil in the future.
With the country already under intense pressure to survive without this key energy resource, removing Díaz-Canel from power would also leave the country without vital leadership, yet retaining its repressive Communist regime.
Cuba itself has long argued that it will not be baited by international threats, and traditionally suggested that it would not consider any proposals that threatened it’s internal affairs.
With Trump now having launched radical political interventions in both Venezuela and Iran in a single three month window, both to widespread condemnation and polarisation even within his own party, Cuba may well be next on the President’s hit list - and it may not be entirely friendly.
While citing a potential Cuban assault in the past, Trump had always called for a ‘friendly takeover’, in which he hoped the sovereign nation would surrender to the US without any bloodshed.
However he recently told reporters: “It may not be a friendly takeover,” after all.
Díaz-Canel, 65, has strongly condemned such a statement, and argued that he would negotiate with the US only ‘under the principles of equality and respect for the political systems of both countries, sovereignty and self-determination’.