Cuba Suffers Blackout as Trump Says ‘Something Will Happen Quickly’
President Donald Trump believes he will reach a deal with Cuba as his economic war has caused the collapse of the island’s electric grid.
On Sunday, Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he believes “something will happen with Cuba pretty quickly,” but added that he must finish the war with Iran first.
“Cuba also wants to make a deal, and I think we will pretty soon either make a deal or do whatever we have to do,” the President explained. “And so, we’re talking to Cuba, but we’re going to do Iran before Cuba.”
Last week, the Cuban President confirmed there were ongoing discussions between Washington and Havana.
On Monday, Cuba’s electric grid failed, and ten million people are without power. The Cuban Ministry of Energy and Mines reported a “complete disconnection.” The blackout comes after Trump tightened the American embargo and cut Cuba off from oil.
President Trump ordered an attack on Venezuela at the beginning of the year that resulted in the capture of President Nicolas Maduro. Washington has demanded the new government in Caracas halt all oil sales to Havana. Additionally, Mexico canceled oil sales to Cuba in fear of reprisals from the US.
Cuba has received only two fuel shipments this year.
Published at libertarianinstitute.org
Trump’s Cruelty Is Strangling Cuba — Its Oil Reserves Could Be Empty by March
The Supreme Court struck down Trump’s threatened tariffs on countries that send oil to Cuba, but the crisis persists.
By
In accordance with Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s long-standing vendetta against Cuba, Donald Trump issued an executive order on January 29 aimed at tightening the U.S. noose around Cuba’s neck.
Trump’s order preposterously declared Cuba “an unusual and extraordinary threat,” without providing a shred of evidence, and warned that he would impose punitive tariffs on states that deliver fuel to Cuba. His intention is to suffocate the Cuban people, who rely on oil for 80 percent of their electricity.
UN human rights experts called Trump’s order “a serious violation of international law” and “an extreme form of unilateral economic coercion with extraterritorial effects, through which the United States seeks to exert coercion on the sovereign state of Cuba and compel other sovereign third States to alter their lawful commercial relations, under threat of punitive trade measures.”
On February 20, however, the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s massive tariffs because they exceeded authority delegated by Congress under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The IEEPA authorizes the president to regulate commerce during national emergencies created by foreign threats.
Later that day, in response to the court’s decision, Trump issued an executive order ending IEEPA-based tariffs, including those that would penalize countries that ship oil to Cuba. That order stops the collection of all IEEPA tariffs, including those threatened in the January 29 Cuba emergency order.
Continue reading at truthout.org
We remind our readers that publication of articles on our site does not mean that we agree with what is written. Our policy is to publish anything which we consider of interest, so as to assist our readers in forming their opinions. Sometimes we even publish articles with which we totally disagree, since we believe it is important for our readers to be informed on as wide a spectrum of views as possible.
