The Dictatorship
Cuba says it is ‘preparing’ for potential U.S. aggression
Cuba is “preparing” for the possibility of U.S. military aggression against the Caribbean island nation, a top Cuban official said Sunday.
“Our military is always prepared, and, in fact, it is preparing these days for the possibility of military aggression,” Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, told NBC News. “We would be naive, if looking at what’s happening around the world, we would not do that.”
Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Fernández de Cossío added, “But we truly hope that it does not occur. We don’t see why it would have to occur. We find no justification whatsoever.”
He spoke as Cuba began restoring power after a nationwide electricity blackout, which Cuban officials have blamed on a U.S. energy blockade driven by President Donald Trump threats to impose tariffs on any country that provides oil to Cuba. Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canal, acknowledged last week that his government is in talks with the U.S. government.
Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have repeatedly warned that Cuba could be next to see U.S. military intervention, adding to a growing number of countries, including Venezuela and Iran, where the U.S. military has interfered.
“I do believe I will be having the honor of taking Cuba,” Trump told reporters last week in the Oval Office. “Whether I free it, take it. Think I can do anything I want with it, you want to know the truth.”
Shortly after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January at Trump’s direction, Rubio said“I don’t think it’s any mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime, who, by the way, are the ones that were propping up Maduro.”
Rubio called the Cuban government “a huge problem.”
Trump’s foreign policy has run counter to his campaign promise to end costly warsarguing that Americans will be safer and better off as a result of such interventions. The joint U.S.-Israel war with Iran, for which the objectives remain unclear, has sent the price of oil and gas skyrocketing and deepened instability across the Middle East.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.