Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that President Trump is offering a “new relationship” with Cuba on its Independence Day.
In a translated statement, Rubio explained that the United States is “offering to help you not only alleviate the current crisis, but also to build a better future.” He noted that the “reason you are forced to survive 22 hours a day without electricity is not due to an oil ‘blockade’ by the U.S. As you know, better than anyone, you have been suffering from blackouts for years.”
“The real reason you don’t have electricity, fuel, or food is because those who control your country have plundered billions of dollars, but nothing has been used to help the people,” he declared.
Calling out Cuba’s corrupt leadership, Rubio explained that Raúl Castro’s company, GAESA, controls about 70% of Cuba’s economy. “Instead of using the money to buy oil, like all other countries in the world, they depended on free oil from Hugo Chávez and Maduro to keep the money. But now that the free oil has stopped coming, they buy fuel for their generators and their vehicles while the people are asked to sacrifice,” he said.
He described GAESA as a “state within the state” that is “accountable to no one and hoards the profits from its businesses for the benefit of a small elite.”
The Secretary of State went on to declare that President Trump is offering a “new relationship between the U.S. and Cuba,” stating that the U.S. is offering $100 million in food and medicine, but it “must be distributed directly to the Cuban people by the Catholic Church or other trusted charitable groups.”
“In the U.S. we are ready to open a new chapter in the relationship between our people and our countries,” Rubio said.
President Trump also shared a message recognizing Cuba’s Independence Day, stating that the “regime in Havana today is the direct betrayal of the nation their founding patriots bled and died for.”
“In the way of all radical leftist ideologies, the regime has quashed any hope of prosperity, banished the notion of human dignity, and starved the hopes and dreams of its people,” the message added. “Its military leaders have demonstrated zero care for ensuring the prosperity of the Cuban people, channeling their attention instead only towards maintaining control and the regime’s raison detre of violently exporting communism and despotism abroad.”
“My commitment is ironclad,” Trump said. “America will not tolerate a rogue state harboring hostile foreign military, intelligence and terror operations just ninety miles from the American homeland, and we will not rest until the people of Cuba once again have the freedom their forefathers fought so valiantly to establish over 100 years ago.”
