President Donald Trump is back to lusting about interfering in Cuba despite struggling to reach a deal to end his war in Iran.
Trump, 79, was asked on Monday what changed after he said he had no problem with countries sending fuel to Cuba in what appeared to be a change of heart, but the president went right back to threatening another invasion.
“Well, we’re going to see with Cuba,” Trump said, standing outside the Oval Office while receiving a McDonald’s delivery. “Cuba’s another story.”
The president claimed Cuba has been a “terribly run country for a long time” with a “bad system.”
“It’s been very oppressive, as you know, and we have a lot of great Cuban Americans, all of whom just about voted for me,” the president claimed. “They were treated very badly. In many cases, family members have been killed. They’ve been beaten up and mugged and like, terrible things happened in Cuba.
“Cuba’s a failing nation, and we’re going to do this, and we may stop by Cuba after we’re finished with this,” Trump said.
He argued it was a nation “horribly run for many years by Castro.”
Late last month, the president indicated he had eased the blockade and said he had “no problem” with countries sending oil to the island nation in crisis as a Russian tanker carrying 730,000 barrels of crude oil approached Cuba.
“If a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem, whether it’s Russia or not,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One.
It came after Trump had previously blocked Venezuela from delivering oil to the Caribbean island after the U.S. military snatched its former president, Nicholas Maduro.
The president then discouraged others in the region from filling the gap, even as critics warned the country was facing a humanitarian crisis with repeated blackouts.
Even with the delivery of Russian oil, Trump insisted that Cuba was “finished” and that the oil delivery would not matter.
The president has repeatedly threatened that the U.S. would invade Cuba “next” after launching strikes on Iran, but Trump’s war in the Middle East has resulted in a greater conflict than the president anticipated, as Trump himself has claimed to be surprised by the extent of the retaliation.
A fragile ceasefire is hanging by a thread after peace talks led by Vice President JD Vance held in Pakistan over the weekend failed to bring about a deal with the Iranians.
Instead, Trump announced a U.S. blockade in the Strait of Hormuz starting Monday morning after shipping through the crucial waterway had already hit a near standstill, sending oil prices skyrocketing globally after he launched the war.
Despite Vance saying they failed to reach an agreement over the weekend, the president on Monday insisted Iran wanted to make a deal.
“I can tell you that we’ve been called by the other side. They’d like to make a deal very badly, very badly,” Trump claimed before sharing that they were at odds over, “they will never have a nuclear weapon,” which is a very pretty large sticking point to have.
