In an interview with conservative host Hugh Hewitt, U.S. President Donald Trump stated that Washington has already put maximum pressure on the Cuban regime and that the only additional step would be direct military action.
"I don't think much more pressure can be exerted except to enter and destroy the place," Trump said when asked if his administration should increase measures against Havana, after more than six decades of communist dictatorship.
Trump made this statement while explaining that, in his opinion, Cuba is in a critical situation following the fall of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, its main economic and political supporter.
"His entire life depended on Venezuela. That's where they got the oil and the money," he stated, insisting that Miguel Díaz-Canel's regime "is hanging by a thread."
In the same exchange, the president made it clear that he does not see an immediate intervention as necessary, as he believes that the collapse could occur due to internal exhaustion.
"Cuba is in great trouble," he reiterated, although he acknowledged that this diagnosis has been repeated for years without the system fully collapsing. This time, however, he said he sees it "fairly close."
The statements come just days after the Republican asserted from Air Force One that "Cuba is ready to fall" and after senior Republican leaders ramped up their rhetoric against Havana.
Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the president's most influential allies in foreign policy, stated that "Cuba's days are numbered" and described it as "the head of the snake" of authoritarianism in Latin America.
The verbal hardening coincides with a broader economic offensive by Washington in the region. The White House has conditioned any reactivation of Venezuelan oil on a total break of Caracas with Cuba, China, Russia, and Iran, a demand that threatens to leave the island even more isolated and without its main source of subsidized energy.
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