Trump Floats ‘Friendly Takeover’ of Cuba After Havana Talks
: President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States was in talks with Havana and raised the possibility of a “friendly takeover of Cuba” without providing any details on what he meant.
Speaking to reporters in front of the White House as he left for Texas, Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been in talks “at a very high level” with Cuban leaders.
“The Cuban government is talking to us,” the president said. “They have no money. They have nothing right now. But they are talking to us and maybe we can take over Cuba in a friendly way.”
He added: “We could end up with a friendly takeover of Cuba.”
Trump did not clarify his comments but appeared to indicate that the situation in Cuba, a communist-run island that has been among Washington’s bitterest enemies for decades, has reached a critical point. The White House did not respond to a request for more information Friday.
The president also said that Cuba “is a failed nation, to say the least” and that “they want our help.”
His remarks came two days after the Cuban government reported that a Florida-registered speedboat carrying 10 armed Cubans from the United States had opened fire on soldiers on the island’s north coast. According to the Cuban government, four of the armed Cubans were killed and six others were injured. A Cuban official was also injured.
Cuba has been on Trump’s mind since at least early January, after US forces ousted Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolás Maduro, one of Havana’s closest allies. Following this pressure, Trump suggested that military action in Cuba may not be necessary because the island’s economy is so weak that it will soon collapse on its own – especially in the absence of oil shipments from Venezuela, which stopped after Maduro’s detention.
“We have been dealing with Cuba for many years. I have been hearing about Cuba since I was little. But they are in big trouble,” he said on Friday.
Later, drawing attention to the community exiled from the island living in the United States, Trump said, “I think it could be a very positive thing for the people who have been exiled from Cuba, or worse, live here.” He did not explain in detail.
The United States has imposed a strict trade embargo on Cuba since 1962, a year after the failed CIA-backed invasion of the Bay of Pigs island. Trump nevertheless stated earlier this month that talks with Cuban officials were continuing.
The Cuban government confirmed it had communicated with US officials following the shooting of the American ship earlier this week. Rubio said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Coast Guard are investigating what happened.
Trump’s executive order, signed in late January, threatened to worsen the country already struggling with a deepening energy crisis by pledging to impose tariffs on countries that supply oil to Cuba; However, US officials have since stated that in some cases Venezuelan oil could be sold to Cuban interests.
Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, stated on social media Friday that “the United States continues with all its might the fuel embargo it has imposed on Cuba, and its effect as a form of collective punishment is unshakable.”
“Nothing announced in recent days changes this fact,” he wrote in his letter to X. “The possibility of a conditional sale to the private sector already existed and does not mitigate the impact on the Cuban population.”
Meanwhile, more than 40 US non-governmental organizations sent a letter to Congress on Friday, demanding “pressure on the Trump administration to reverse its aggressive policy towards Cuba” and saying efforts to cut off oil shipments to the Caribbean island would lead to a humanitarian collapse.
Signatories included the Baptist Alliance, ActionAid USA and the Presbyterian Church.
“Policies that deliberately impose starvation and mass hardship on millions of civilians constitute a form of collective punishment and are therefore a serious violation of international humanitarian law,” the letter says.
