Is Cuba next for Trump?

On Monday 30 March, Al Jazeera published an exclusive interview with US secretary of state Marco Rubio. Predictably, the Trump crony used the opportunity to deny US responsibility for the humanitarian crisis in Cuba, stating that America had done “nothing punitive.”

Of course, this is an outright lie and utterly unconnected to basic, observable fact. But then, this shameless display of propagandising has long been the order for the Republican administration.

Stranglehold

As the Canary previously reported, Trump’s second administration has massively tightened the longstanding US stranglehold on Cuba. On top of the decades-long US embargo, Trump issued an executive order in January threatening any country which sends oil to the island.

His escalating campaign of terror has brought the island’s health system to its knees, putting thousands of lives at risk. On 25 March, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that:

Reports show that Cuban hospitals have been struggling to maintain emergency and intensive care services.

Thousands of surgeries have been postponed during the last month, and people needing care, from cancer patients to pregnant women preparing for delivery, have been put at risk due to lack of power to operate medical equipment and cold chain storage for vaccines.

Similarly, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stated that Cuba has suffered three total grid collapses over the last month:

leaving over 10 million people without electricity after three consecutive months without diesel, fuel oil, gasoline, jet fuel or liquefied petroleum gas.

‘I could do anything I want with it’

Worse still, Trump has indicated that he intends an outright attack on Cuba. On 16 March, he voiced plans to “take” Cuba, along with the chilling statement:

I think I could do anything I want with it.

Similarly, on 29 March, in a self-aggrandizing rant on his recent illegal attacks on Venezuela, the president stated:

Cuba’s next, by the way, but pretend I didn’t say that, please.

Cue Marco Rubio, who is himself the child of Cuban immigrants. The US state secretary has been vocal in his hatred for the communist government in Cuba and its president Miguel Diaz-Canel.

In his March 30 interview with Al Jazeera, Rubio argued that the US was blameless for the crisis in Cuba:

We’ve done nothing punitive against the Cuban regime. They claim we have, but we haven’t. The only thing that’s changed for the Cuban regime is they’re not getting free Venezuelan oil anymore. They’re not getting subsidies anymore. That’s the only thing that’s changed.

As a reminder, Venezuela isn’t shipping oil to Cuba because of the threat of US retaliation.

Likewise, Rubio also denied reports from Cuban officials and the UN that the blackouts on the island are getting worse:

These blackouts that are occurring that I see people reporting have nothing to do with us. They were having blackouts last year. They’re having blackouts because they have equipment from the 1950s in their grid that they’ve never maintained and never upgraded because they’re incompetent.

Cuba does indeed experience frequent blackouts. However, that situation has been made far worse by the fascist US administration blocking fuel from reaching the island.

Brazen lies

Instead, Rubio tried to blame the dire situation on Cuba’s leadership, issuing one of his frequent calls for a change in government:

We’ve tried to explain it to anyone who will listen. Their system doesn’t work, their system of economics. It’s completely dysfunctional. It’s just not a real system, and you can’t change it unless you change the government.

The US state secretary is blatantly trying to manufacture cover for a US attack on Cuba, as if America bothers with finding a reason to wage its wars anymore.

Trump has prevented almost all fuel from reaching the communist nation. As a consequence, it has experienced increasing, life-threatening power outages. And Rubio wants us to believe that this is Cuba’s fault?

The Trump administration is lying — openly, brazenly, without a care for the fact that the whole world can see what they’re doing, plain as day.

Featured image via the Canary