Trump Issues Warning to Cuba Over Oil Crisis
The US President this week enacted an executive order targeting nations supplying oil to the Caribbean island with punitive tariffs, tightening a decades-old embargo first imposed in the 1960s.
This escalation follows Washington's detention last month of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro—Havana's chief oil supplier until now.
Mexico had ramped up petroleum shipments to Cuba recently, prompting Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to sound the alarm Friday.
She cautioned that Trump's directive could "trigger a large-scale humanitarian crisis, directly affecting hospitals, food supplies, and other basic services for the Cuban people."
Responding to Sheinbaum's concerns from Air Force One Saturday, Trump dismissed the dire prediction: "Well, it doesn't have to be a humanitarian crisis. I think they probably would come to us and want to make a deal. So Cuba would be free again."
He painted a grim picture of the island's economic straits: "We have a situation that's very bad for Cuba. They have no money. They have no oil... They lived off Venezuelan money and oil, and none of that's coming now."
Trump projected optimism about reaching terms with Havana, pledging Washington would act with kindness.
The US leader stopped short of detailing his demands, noting only that "we have a lot of people in the US right now that would love to go back to Cuba and we'd like to work that out."
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova condemned the campaign Saturday as Cuba's "economic suffocation," reaffirming Moscow's stance against UN-unauthorized unilateral sanctions while voicing certainty Havana will weather the crisis.
Cuban officials have proclaimed an "international emergency," characterizing Trump's offensive as an "extraordinary threat" from "the US anti-Cuban neo-fascist right wing."
Media reported the island possesses merely 15 to 20 days of oil reserves based on current consumption and production rates.
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