US President Donald Trump has said he would “certainly consider” using military force against Cuba, adding that he wants to “get Cuba done” before he leaves office in 2029.
In a phone interview on Thursday with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, of Salem News Channel, Trump was asked whether he was considering “freeing Cuba” through a military intervention.
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“I want to get Cuba done before I leave,” he said, adding that the administration was “watching it very closely”.
Trump called the island “essentially a failed … place, nation, whatever you wanna call it”.
Politico reported that it was the first time Trump had put a timeline on a possible operation.
Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose parents are from Cuba, “would love to do it”.
“I’d love to be able to do it for the people, for the Cubans that came and were treated really badly, and they came to America,” Trump said. He added that he won the Cuban vote in Florida by a wide margin.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to topple authorities in Cuba.
On Monday, he said Cuba “will fall fairly soon” and that the US would help it “on a humanitarian basis”.
In March, he said he believed he would have “the honour of taking Cuba”, making the remarks as the island’s power grid collapsed.
Trump put Cuba under a de facto oil blockade in January, after the US seized Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, and cut off Venezuelan oil to the island.
He signed an executive order declaring Cuba an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the US and threatened tariffs on any country that supplied it with fuel.
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The blockade has caused repeated nationwide blackouts, fuel and food shortages, and a humanitarian crisis.
Cuban officials have called it “collective punishment”.
Washington has added sanctions, including on Cuba’s state oil company, President Miguel Diaz-Canel and relatives of former President Raul Castro, and announced a new round this month targeting 10 people and entities tied to the government, military and oil industry.
The US has also issued an arrest warrant for Castro. Officials from both sides have held talks on the blockade, but Cuba’s foreign minister said in June there had been “no progress”.
In March, the head of US Southern Command told senators that US troops were not rehearsing for an invasion of Cuba.
Cuban officials said the island was ready for any attack.
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