President Donald Trump on Sunday in a Truth Social post urged Cuba to make a deal with the United States “BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE” following the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
“Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of OIL and MONEY from Venezuela,” Trump said. “In return, Cuba provided ‘Security Services’ for the last two Venezuelan dictators, BUT NOT ANYMORE! Most of those Cubans are DEAD from last weeks U.S.A. attack, and Venezuela doesn’t need protection anymore from the thugs and extortionists who held them hostage for so many years.”
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The Cuban government reported 32 Cuban military personnel were killed in the U.S. strike used to capture Maduro. Venezuela’s interior minister Diosdado Cabello said last week 100 people died in the attack.
Venezuela reportedly sent 30,000 to 35,000 barrel of oil to Cuba per day. However, Trump wrote that “THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA — ZERO!”
In response, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said on X that the U.S. does not have the “moral authority to point fingers at Cuba on anything.”
“Cuba is a free, independent and sovereign nation,” Díaz-Canel wrote on X. “No one dictates to us what to do. Cuba does not aggress; it has been attacked by the U.S. for 66 years, and it does not threaten, but rather prepares itself, ready to defend the homeland to the last drop of blood.”
Venezuela’s oil
On Tuesday, Trump announced that interim authorities in Venezuela will turn over between 30 and 50 million barrels of “high quality, sanctioned oil” to the U.S. He said he asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this plan “immediately.”
“This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States.”
Then, on Friday at the White House, he met with the CEOs of oil companies such as Exxon, ConocoPhilips and Chevron to talk about investing in Venezuela. Chevron is currently the sole American oil company in Venezuela. Wright told CNBC that the U.S. is working closely with the company.
However, other CEOs were more cautious about the prospect of of new investments in Venezeula. Exxon and Conoco will need reassurances to return to Venezuela, Wright said to CNBC, as former President Hugo Chavez seized their assets in 2007, causing them to leave the country.
“We’ve had our assets seized there twice, and so you can imagine, to re-enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we’ve historically seen,” Exxon CEO Darren Woods said at the meeting.
US-Cuba relations after Venezuela strike
Since Maduro’s capture, Trump and officials in his administration suggested the U.S. could take action against several countries, including Cuba.
Shortly after the attack, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he’d “be concerned” if he was one of Cuba’s leaders.
At a press conference at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, Rubio said Cuba is being “run by incompetent, senile men, and in some cases not seen now, but incompetent nonetheless.”
Cuban officials, according to The Hill, said U.S. intervention would be destabilizing for the region.
“All nations of the region must remain alert, as the threat hangs over all. In Cuba, our determination to struggle is firm and unwavering. The decision is one and only one: Homeland or Death,” government officials said in a statement.
