US President Donald Trump is more seriously considering waging war on Cuba as his economic pressure campaign on the island nation fails to bring about the results he wants, according to a report published Monday.
Two anonymous sources told the Politico news outlet that Trump and his senior officials have grown increasingly frustrated by the Cuban leadership’s refusal to institute changes demanded by Washington.
“The mood has definitely changed,” one of the sources familiar with the ongoing deliberations told Politico.
“The initial idea on Cuba was that the leadership was weak and that the combination of stepped-up sanctions enforcement, really an oil blockade, and clear U.S. military wins in Venezuela and Iran would scare the Cubans into making a deal. Now Iran has gone sideways, and the Cubans are proving much tougher than originally thought. So now military action is on the table in a way that it wasn’t before,” the source added.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said Thursday that lifting Washington’s energy “blockade” would be a far “simpler” way to help the island than the $100 million aid package offered by the US as Cuba faces its worst fuel crisis in decades.
“The damage could be alleviated in a much easier and more expedient way by lifting or easing the blockade, since it is well known that the humanitarian situation is coldly calculated and induced,” Diaz-Canel wrote on the US social media platform X.
He said Washington will not face ingratitude from Cubans, “however inconsistent and paradoxical the offer may seem to a people that the United States government itself punishes collectively in a systematic and ruthless manner.”
Cuba said Wednesday that it has completely run out of fuel oil and diesel, describing the national grid in a critical state with no reserves.
The comments came one day after the US State Department renewed its offer to provide $100 million in direct humanitarian assistance to Cubans while urging reforms and criticizing Havana’s communist government.
Cuba is in the midst of a fuel crisis following Trump’s decision to impose an oil embargo on Jan. 29. His order explicitly threatens to impose US tariffs on any country “that directly or indirectly sells or otherwise provides any oil to Cuba.”
Trump has repeatedly said the island nation is “next” after the military operation against Iran concludes and has claimed the communist-run island would fall “soon.”
