US is in talks with Cuban leadership, says Trump, after blockade threats | Donald Trump

Days after threatening Cuba’s faltering economy with a de facto oil blockade, Donald Trump said Washington was negotiating with Havana’s leaders to reach a deal.

“Cuba is a failed nation. It’s been that way for a long time, but now there’s no Venezuela to back it up. So we’re talking to the people in Cuba, the highest people in Cuba, to see what happens,” Trump told reporters Sunday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

“I think we will make a deal with Cuba.”

Trump gave no indication of what such a deal might entail.

The US president said on Saturday: “This doesn’t have to be a humanitarian crisis. I think they’ll probably come to us and want to make a deal… They have a very bad situation for Cuba. They don’t have money. They don’t have oil. They live on Venezuelan money and oil, and none of that is coming anymore.”

Trump’s second administration has been increasing pressure on the communist-run island nation off the coast of south Florida since ousting Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, whose country was a close ally of Havana and a major source of oil exports to Cuba.

The Republican president on Thursday signed an executive order threatening to impose additional tariffs on countries selling oil to Cuba.

Hours later, Cubans were lining up in long lines at gas stations in Havana on Friday.

Trump and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, the Miami-born son of Cuban exiles, have made no secret of their desire to bring regime change to Havana.

Following Maduro’s ouster, the US president warned Havana to “make a deal soon” or face uncertain consequences.

“NO MORE OIL AND MONEY FOR CUBA: ZERO!” Trump has previously claimed that Cuba is “ready to fall.”

The Cuban government accused Trump of trying to stifle the island’s economy, where daily power outages have intensified and queues at gas stations have lengthened.