Above photo: AFP via Getty Images.
In push for regime change.
Cuba is facing a severe food and energy crisis as a result of Trump’s executive order imposing a blockade on the island.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has falsely informed President Donald Trump that “high-level” negotiations are taking place between Washington and Havana – despite no such talks existing, Drop Site News reported on 9 February.
According to the report, Rubio has fed this information to Trump as part of “his ambitious play to overthrow the Cuban government.”
Five Cuban and US officials told Drop Site News that “there are and have been no negotiations involving high-level officials between Havana and Washington.”
“He’s saying that because that’s what Marco is telling him,” a senior US government official said.
There is an “internal effort by Rubio to make Trump believe that the US and Cuba are engaged in serious negotiations without ever doing so,” sources said, adding that “the idea that in a few weeks or months, Rubio will be able to claim that the talks were futile because of Cuban intransigence.”
This will make the secretary’s “vision of regime change the only path forward.”
The State Department, when asked, alleged talks were indeed happening. Cuban officials said no such thing has happened.
“At the moment, we’ve had some exchanges of messages, but we cannot say we have set a bilateral dialogue at this moment,” Cuba’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos Fernandez de Cossio told CNN last week.
Havana has repeatedly signaled its readiness to enter into negotiations on the condition that its sovereignty is not violated, while also rejecting preconditions and pressure.
The Drop Site News report comes over a month after Washington’s illegal kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Maduro has been charged with unsubstantiated allegations that Caracas is responsible for the Fentanyl flooding into the US.
Yet Trump has openly admitted that the kidnapping was aimed at “taking” the oil, much like the president said about Syria in 2019, during his first term.
He also says Venezuela’s leadership has submitted to US terms and that Caracas has agreed to a new deal allowing Washington to take over the country’s oil sales. Venezuela’s Oil Ministry denies this and says negotiations are ongoing under already existing frameworks.
Rubio has been pushing for full regime change in both Cuba and Venezuela.
The secretary of state – who is of Cuban origin – has received significant funding from top diaspora business leaders and Political Action Committees (PACs) in the US who are strongly opposed to the government in Havana.
Washington has been actively working to prevent Cuba from receiving energy shipments, following last month’s executive order to impose tariffs on any state providing oil to the country. As a result of the pressure, Mexico has halted its deliveries.
The exclusive Drop Site News report follows Trump’s recent claims that his government was talking to the “highest people” in Cuba.
As a result of the US blockade, the Caribbean island has been facing a severe energy crisis, with constant blackouts and fuel shortages.
The country also faces an exacerbated food security crisis. Nearly 89 percent of the Cuban population lives in extreme poverty.
The US is “strangling” Cuba, Russia warned on Monday, stressing that the Kremlin is looking for ways to assist the island nation.
