Iran is still burning. The Strait of Hormuz is still closed. 13 Americans are dead. And Donald Trump is already eyeing his next target.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump made clear that Cuba is on his list and that he is not particularly fussed about how the takeover goes.
“Whether I free it, take it. I think I can do anything I want with it, you want to know the truth,” he said. When Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy asked him point blank if he was talking about taking Cuba, the president said yes, “in some form.” He then described Cuba as a “failed nation” with “no money, no oil, no nothing,” before complimenting its “nice landscape.” Only Trump can threaten a country and compliment its scenery in the same breath.
Trump: “I do believe I’ll be having the honor of taking Cuba. That’s a big honor. Taking Cuba in some form. I think I can do anything I want with it, if you want to know the truth.” pic.twitter.com/Q8UaxIThHz
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 16, 2026
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This did not come out of nowhere.
Since returning to the office, Trump has been methodically tightening a vice around the island. In January, he cut off the flow of Venezuelan oil to Cuba. Days later, he signed an executive order threatening tariffs on any country that supplies Cuba with oil, effectively building the first American blockade of the island since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Mexico, one of Cuba’s last remaining suppliers, temporarily halted shipments. Nicaragua cancelled visa-free travel for Cuban citizens. One by one, the exits closed.
The results on the ground are severe. Blackouts that once lasted hours now stretch on for days. When electricity flickers on in the middle of the night, that is when Cubans rise to cook and iron clothes. There is almost no fuel, which means almost no cars.
Hotels sit empty. Tourists are gone. During a recent 36-hour blackout, a group of men cooked over burning tree limbs on the sidewalk of one of Havana’s main avenues. “We have returned to the Stone Age,” one of them called out. The United Nations Secretary-General has warned the situation could “collapse” entirely if oil supplies are not restored.
Trump’s plan, to the extent there is one, is to hand the operation to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “It may be a friendly takeover, it may not be a friendly takeover. It wouldn’t matter because they’re really down to, as they say, fumes,” Trump said. He added that Rubio is the right man for the job because Cubans “trust” him and because he speaks Spanish, “which is always nice and always helpful.”
Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel confirmed on Friday that his government has held talks with the U.S., saying they were “aimed at seeking solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences between the two nations.”
Cuba’s economic czar separately told NBC News that Cuban nationals living abroad, including in Miami, will now be permitted to invest in and own businesses on the island. Small concessions, made under enormous pressure.
The United Nations Human Rights Office has described the blockade as a “serious violation of international law.” A panel of UN experts cast doubt on Trump’s claim that Cuba constitutes a national security threat, calling the fuel blockade “an extreme form of unilateral economic coercion.”
Featured image via X screengrab
