President Donald Trump stated this Saturday that Cuba "wants to negotiate" with his administration, according to what was reported during his appearance at the Summit Shield of the Americas, held in Miami with 12 allied countries from the continent.
In his intervention, he stated that these conversations involve Secretary of State Marco Rubio and himself, adding that a possible agreement with Havana could be reached "very easily."
"And they want to negotiate. And they are negotiating with Marco and me, and with some others. I believe an agreement with Cuba could be achieved very easily," said Trump.
In his statements, Trump portrayed Cuba as a country on the brink of economic and political collapse.
He claimed that the island is “at the end of the road,” that it “has no money” or oil, and attributed this situation to what he described as “a bad philosophy” and “a bad regime that has been harmful for a long time.”
The official also noted that in the past, Cuba received resources from Venezuela, but that support seems to have vanished. "They used to receive money from Venezuela. They received oil from Venezuela. But now they have no money from Venezuela, no oil, nothing," he stated.
As an example of the crisis he described, Trump stated that in Cuba there isn't even enough fuel for aerial operations.
“People can't even… when they land in Cuba, they can't get fuel to take off again. They have to leave their planes there,” he stated.
Trump insisted that the Cuban system is going through its final phase and that a transformation is imminent. "Cuba is in its last moments as it has been."
It will have a very big new life, but it is in its final moments just as it is now,” he declared.
His priorities
At the same time, he made it clear that the situation in Iran is the immediate priority of his administration. “Our focus right now is on Iran, and we will deal with that,” he said, before casually mentioning Rubio again.
In that passage, Trump suggested that the Cuban issue would be less complex than other foreign policy matters. “What are you going to do, Marco? Take a couple of days off? No, you won't. Maybe an hour. You’ll take an hour off and then finalize a deal on Cuba. That one will be easy,” he stated.
The president added that his foreign policy towards Cuba is part of a broader strategy for Latin America and the Caribbean. "But what we are doing encompasses the whole region," he stated.
Trump also shared that several people present at the event asked him to intervene in the Cuban situation. "Many of you have come today and tell me: 'We hope you can take care of Cuba, because they have had problems with Cuba,'" he noted.
He even said he was surprised by the insistence of those requests. “I was surprised, but four of you said, ‘Could you do us a favor and take care of Cuba?’ I’ll take care of that, alright,” he concluded.
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