US President Donald Trump has urged Cuba to “make a deal” or face consequences.
In a posting on Truth Social on Sunday, January 11, Trump said: “THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”
According to the US president, “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!”
Since US forces seized Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, in a 3 January raid on its capital, Caracas, President Trump has turned his attention to Cuba. Venezuela is a long-standing ally of Cuba and is believed to send around 35,000 barrels of oil a day to the island.
But Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez said the Caribbean island nation had “the absolute right to import fuel” from any willing exporter “without interference or subordination to the unilateral coercive measures of the United States.”
Unlike the US, Cuba does not lend itself to “blackmail or military coercion against other States,” Rodrigue added.
Already, the fuel and electricity crisis has begun to worsen in Cuba following the Trump administration’s tactic of confiscating sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers.
