Trump suggests US could carry out ‘friendly takeover’ of Cuba | Donald Trump
Donald Trump suggested that the United States could carry out a “friendly takeover” of Cuba as tensions between Washington and Havana reached a new peak following the capture of Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro.
As he left the White House for a campaign event in Texas on Friday, Trump said: “The Cuban government is talking to us. They’re in big trouble.”
Although he did not provide further details, it was widely reported that U.S. officials met with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the grandson of 94-year-old Raúl Castro, on the sidelines of the Caribbean leaders’ summit Caricom as part of negotiations to open the island.
Trump said on Friday: “They don’t have money, they don’t have anything right now. But they’re talking to us and maybe we can take over Cuba amicably.”
The president’s comments come as relations between the two countries have fallen to one of their lowest points in an often painful 67-year history. The United States has stepped up pressure on Cuba’s struggling regime following the successful kidnapping of Venezuelan President and Cuban ally Nicolás Maduro in January.
Before the attack on Caracas, U.S. officials received a promise of cooperation from Maduro’s deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, who is now Venezuela’s acting president and has promised to open the country’s vast oil reserves to foreign companies.
Washington’s pressure also led to the dismissal of attorney general Tarek William Saab and prompted Venezuela to cut oil exports to Cuba. The United States imposed an oil embargo on the island, stifling what was left of the island’s already troubled economy.
“I’ve heard about Cuba since I was little, but they are in big trouble,” Trump said.
Referring to the large Cuban exile community in the United States, he suggested that taking over the island could be “a good… very positive thing” for them, saying: “You know, we have people living here who want to come back to Cuba, and they’re very happy with what’s going on.”
Trump’s greedy language will fuel concerns among Cubans that history is repeating itself: U.S. financial dominance of the Cuban economy was one of the main drivers of Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.
His claim marked a surprising departure from his previous public statements. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has previously said that although his government is willing to talk, talks cannot involve Cuba’s internal affairs and must come “from a position of equals, respecting our sovereignty, independence and self-determination.”
“Cuba’s Berlin Wall moment is very near,” said Manuel Barcia, a history professor at the University of Bath, who has family on the island he left in 2001. [US secretary of state] “Marco Rubio staged a very impressive demolition.”
Trump has long relied on electoral support from Cuban exiles concentrated in Miami who dream of overthrowing the communist government installed on the island by Fidel Castro.
Pedro Freyre, a prominent figure in the exile community who acts as a lawyer for companies that want to do business on the island, said Trump’s language suggests that a deal similar to Venezuela’s is on the way, where most of the regime’s leading figures could remain in place.
“This is expressed in business terminology. When you read this together with Rubio’s recent comments, it points to economic rather than openings, all under US auspices,” Freyre said.
This could end very badly in Miami. William LeoGrande, a professor of government at American University in Washington, believes the White House is focused on getting Cuban Americans on board. He noted an international tour currently led by U.S. chargé d’affaires Mike Hammer in Havana.
“Hammer serves more as an ambassador to the diaspora than as the United States’ representative in the Cuban government,” LeoGrande said. “By traveling to Miami and Madrid, he makes exiled Cubans feel like their voices are being heard, so they are more likely to accept a change in U.S. policy if Trump succeeds in striking a deal with Cuba.”
Trump’s comments came days after a group of heavily armed exiles from Florida tried to land a speedboat loaded with weapons on the island’s north coast, sparking a gunfight at sea that left four dead and seven injured.
