Trump's Gunboat Diplomacy Targets Cuba's Oil Lifeline, Puts Suppliers In Crosshairs
Cuba "will be failing pretty soon," President Trump told reporters Tuesday during a visit to Iowa.
"They got their oil from Venezuela. They're not getting that anymore."
By Thursday evening, the president signed an Executive Order declaring a national emergency related to Cuba and creating a new tariff mechanism targeting countries that supply oil to the Cuban regime.
The EO allows the U.S. to slap additional tariffs on imports from any country that directly or indirectly provides crude oil to Cuba, with implementation led by the Secretaries of State and Commerce.
Trump claims Havana's communist Cuban regime "aligns itself — and provides support to numerous hostile countries, transnational terrorist groups and malign actors adverse to the United States," Russia, China, and Iran, provides "defense, intelligence and security assistance to adversaries in the Western Hemisphere" and violates the human rights of its citizens.
The order comes as no surprise.
As we noted in early December, Juan S. Gonzalez, President Joe Biden's top White House aide for Western Hemisphere affairs, said that once the Nicolas Maduro regime was eliminated, Trump's gunboat diplomacy would involve cutting off all support to Cuba. Under this approach, once Venezuela goes, Cuba will follow. And here we are ...
Earlier this week, Mexico's state oil company, Pemex, stopped short of its planned oil shipments to Cuba, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed on Tuesday.
We also reported this week that Cuba's power grid is facing further collapse, with Venezuelan-born political commentator Eduardo Menoni writing on X that power blackouts are now lasting more than 20 hours per day.
Menoni added, "Cuba's electrical system has completely collapsed in Havana. Communism is A SHITTY DEAL."
Trump claims that Havana's communist Cuban regime aligns itself with foreign adversaries. We outlined this very clearly in our assessment which includes the most recent note:
Visualize...
Western hemispheric defense includes ridding the West of Marxism.