The U.S. is in talks with Cuba’s leadership over a potential deal between Washington and Havana, President Donald Trump has said, following his warning that the Caribbean island would face a virtual oil blockade.
Trump said on Sunday that Washington was negotiating with Havana’s leadership to strike a deal, and he reiterated his claim that Cuba was a “failing nation.”
Newsweek has contacted the Cuban Foreign Ministry for comment.
Why It Matters
Trump has increased pressure on the communist-run island nation off south Florida since the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whose country was a crucial source for oil exports to Cuba.
The U.S. president has signed an executive order threatening to impose additional tariffs on countries that sell oil to Cuba, which has accused the U.S. of trying to choke the island economically as it faces serious power cuts and long lines at gas stations. Trump’s comments on Sunday suggest there could be an agreement between the two countries.
What To Know
On Sunday, Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, that Washington was negotiating with Havana’s leadership to strike a deal, although he gave no further details.
Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Miami-born son of Cuban exiles, have expressed their wish for regime change. After the capture of Maduro, the U.S. president warned Havana to “make a deal soon” or face unspecified consequences.
Trump said Venezuela could no longer prop up Cuba following Maduro’s ouster, adding that there did not have to be a humanitarian crisis if Havana agreed to a deal.
Thomas O’Donnell, an energy analyst behind the website Global Barrel, told Newsweek that the Venezuelan state-owned oil firm PDVSA, which had been controlled by former President Huge Chavez, used to deliver Cuba more oil than the island needed, and what was left over could be refined and exported at a profit.
That agreement, one aspect of the Petrocaribe program where Venezuela pushed to displace Mexico as the regional oil supplier, has finished.
This buffered periods of high prices damaging to economies of small states across the region that had no indigenous fuel resources and put them in hock to PDVSA—which Chavez, who died in 2013, had leveraged among regional leaders.
O’Donnell said the Trump administration could be pushing the Havana regime to a deal, such as for a managed transition and domestic free-market economic reforms alongside a detailed, preferential reintegration with the U.S. economy.
What People Are Saying
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday: “Cuba is a failing nation. It has been for a long time, but now it doesn’t have Venezuela to prop it up. … I think we’re going to make a deal with Cuba.”
Energy analyst Thomas O’Donnell told Newsweek: “This Trump-Rubio transition model is, from what can be discerned, a deal for a managed transition in stages.”
What Happens Next
Since Maduro’s capture, Cuba has become dependent on Mexico for oil, and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum warned that Cuba could face a humanitarian crisis. She said on Friday that she would seek alternatives to continue helping the island.
Mike Hammer, the U.S. charge d’affaires to Cuba, said he faced insults in Trinidad province, Cuba, prompting the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs to say its diplomats would continue to meet with the Cuban people “despite the regime’s failed intimidation.”
