The President of the United States, Donald Trump, joked this Saturday about the possibility of quickly resolving the political situation in Cuba and suggested that Secretary of State Marco Rubio could handle the issue “in an hour”, during his remarks at the Shield of the Americas Summit held in Miami.
The comment was made while the president was discussing his administration's regional agenda before leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean gathered at the Trump National Doral complex.
“What are you going to do, Marco? Take two days off?”, Trump asked Rubio in a relaxed tone. “No, maybe an hour. He’ll take an hour off and then finish up a deal on Cuba,” he added with laughter.
The leader also stated that his government is in talks with Havana and that reaching an agreement would not be difficult. “They want to negotiate and they are negotiating with Marco and me”, he assured.
Trump insisted that the current political system of the island is undergoing a critical phase and described the country as an economy in crisis. “Cuba is at the end of the line. They have no money, no oil. They have a bad philosophy and a bad regime,” he said in front of the attending leaders.
During his speech, the U.S. president linked the situation on the island to the decline of the economic alliance that had been maintained with Venezuela for years.
According to Trump, the Cuban government largely depended on the oil and resources sent from Caracas, a relationship that, in his view, no longer supports the regime.
"They used to receive money and oil from Venezuela. Now they have none of that," he stated.
The leader also stated that the current political model in the island is in its "final moments of life," although he maintained that the country could experience a significant transformation in the future.
“Cuba is in its final moments of existence as it is today. It will have a great new life”, he said.
The statements were made during the Shield of the Americas Summit, a regional meeting convened by the White House that brought together leaders from 12 Latin American and Caribbean countries in Miami to discuss issues of security, drug trafficking, migration, and hemispheric cooperation.
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