At The Behest Of Marco Rubio, The Trump Administration Is Enacting Siege Warfare On Cuba.

Marco Rubio is enacting his pet project of regime change in Cuba through siege warfare.

On January 29th, the Trump administration issued an executive order that labeled Cuba an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States.

This was based solely on the fact that Cuba has a friendly relationship with “malign actors adverse to the United States, including the Government of the Russian Federation (Russia), the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Government of Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah.”

Based on these accusations, the Trump administration promised to impose tariffs on any country that “directly or indirectly sells or otherwise provides any oil to Cuba,” completely cutting the country off from oil, in hopes that the siege warfare tactic would lead to regime change.

Since the regime change operation in Venezuela, the Trump administration has forced Venezuela to stop selling oil to Cuba, and, under threat of tariffs, forced Mexico to cut off oil supply to Cuba as well.

Bloomberg magazine explains, “For years, Venezuela was Cuba’s main source of oil, a lifeline that helped keep the island’s economy running. The US cut off that support after ousting Maduro, leaving Mexico as Cuba’s main supplier. But in late January, Mexico halted shipments, citing President Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on countries that supply oil to Cuba, and fuel imports to the island reached zero for the first time since 2015.”

“As a result”, Bloomberg notes, “Cuba’s long-running economic crisis has deepened to one of its worst points in decades. Shortly before issuing the tariff threat, Trump said ‘Cuba will be failing pretty soon.’ But the island nation, just 90 miles from Florida’s coast, has defied dire predictions before Caracas’s decision to stop sending fuel to Cuba is already decimating the island’s economy. Gasoline is being rationed, the nation is covering less than half of its electricity needs, tourist resorts are being shuttered, and the government has told airlines they won’t be able to refuel. The crisis is worsened by Mexico’s decision to halt its oil shipments”.

The magazine added, “Experts have warned that the US pressure campaign will exacerbate chronic shortages of food, medicine, and other essential goods.”

Time Magazine noted that due to the blockade, “Some medical facilities have also been severely impacted by the fuel shortages. Local media reported that some provincial hospitals have canceled surgeries and outpatient transfers. Critical medical supplies such as painkillers, gauze, and antibiotics are also unavailable,” adding that, “The United Nations warned last week that the ‘vast majority of Cubans’ are being hit by rolling blackouts, and that the humanitarian collapse would ‘worsen, and if not collapse, if its oil needs go unmet.’”

The Wall Street Journal reports that due to the blockade , “The Caribbean island’s Communist authorities are rationing dwindling fuel supplies, curtailing public transportation and furloughing workers. Children are being sent home from school early, people can barely afford basic food like milk and chicken, and long lines have sprung up at gas stations. Cuba’s crucial tourism industry is paralyzed. Some popular hotels, crippled by ongoing blackouts, have begun to shut down, ferrying remaining guests to other lodging”

This sadistic policy of siege warfare is being primarily driven by Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who has long clamoured for regime change in Cuba.

Bloomberg noted that this policy was driven by Rubio in part because “Cuban Americans are a powerful voting bloc in South Florida, and that community has long advocated for the downfall of the regime. If Rubio were the one to pull it off, it would help make him a Republican front-runner in future elections.”

While Trump currently claims he “intends to strike with Cuban leaders”, Responsible Statecraft noted this is unlikely to happen because , Trump has “thus far effectively outsourced Cuba policy” to Marco Rubio, adding that he is “leading him to believe that the Cuban regime is about to collapse, and that civil unrest from prolonged power cuts will magically produce a pliant regime rather than a consolidation of the armed forces and mass emigration during an election year.”

The think tank added that, “Rubio and his allies in Congress who have long rejected dialogue with a government they see as illegitimate and who insist that the president cannot lift Cuba sanctions until there is regime change, could play spoilers in any deal with Havana.”

To make matters worse, Rubio is apparently lying to Trump by claiming that the U.S. is currently negotiating with Cuba- while not opening negotiations-to give the false impression to Trump that Cuba rejected negotiations to justify the continuation of siege warfare.

Drop Site News reported :

When it comes to Trump’s claims of those talks, it turns out he isn’t lying. Instead, sources tell Drop Site, he’s being lied to. ‘He’s saying that because that’s what Marco is telling him,’ said a senior Trump official, referring to an internal effort by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to make Trump believe that the U.S. and Cuba are engaged in serious negotiations without ever doing so. The idea, the source said, is that in a few weeks or months, Rubio will be able to claim that the talks were futile because of Cuban intransigence. With diplomatic off-ramps being blocked, this would make Rubio’s vision of regime change the only path forward for an administration loath to reverse course on anything.

Rubio’s sadistic plan is to create complete economic collapse in Cuba, causing pain and suffering to the people of Cuba, in hopes that it will lead them to rise up and effect regime change, to help Rubio’s popularity with Cuban exiles in Miami.

This siege warfare strategy is a mirror image of the same strategy the Trump administration is imposing on Iran at the behest of Israel.

Referring to the Trump administrations policy towards Iran, his Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent boasted , “What we can do at treasury, and what we have done, is created a dollar shortage in the country, at a speech at the Ecenomic club in New York in March I outlined the strategy, it came to a swift -and I would say grand- culmination in December when one of the largest banks in Iran went under, there was a run in the bank, the central bank had to print money, the Iranian currency went into freefall, inflation exploded and hence we have seen the Iranian people out on the street.”

At the behest of Marco Rubio and fanatical supporters of regime change in Cuba, the Trump administration is now deploying similar siege warfare tactics against Cuba.

---

Note to readers: The Dissident is a reader-supported outlet. If you liked this article, consider becoming a paid subscriber.