PALM BEACH — WithNicolás Maduro in U.S. custodyand American authorities running Venezuela, which is next? Cuba? Colombia? The Panama Canal?
The Havana regime is in his sights,President Donald Trumpsaid Jan. 3.
"Cuba is going to be something we'll end up talking about, because Cuba is a failing nation right now, very badly failing nation, and we want to help the people," the president said during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago a day after a U.S. military operation removed Maduro from Venezuela. "It's very similar in the sense that we want to help the people in Cuba, but we want to also help the people that were forced out of Cuba and living in this country."
The president also reiterated aggressive comments toward Colombia's President Gustavo Petro, who last month denigrated the Trump administration as a "clan of pedophiles" citing investigatory files from sex abuser and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump said Petro also is presiding over a state interwoven with the narcotics trade. The president then said he stood by assertions he made late last month that the South American leader needs to "watch his ass."
The globally strategic passageway in the Panama isthmus did not come up during the press gathering in the Winter White House but Trump has cajoled the Panamanian government about alleged Chinese domination of the canal. However, the Central American country's president, José Raúl Mulino, said on Jan. 2 that the brewing break with Washington was over and his government was actively cooperating with the United States to address grievances.
So it was mostly Cuba that Trump was interested in addressing in Palm Beach in discussing Operation Absolute Resolve to remove Maduro from the seat of power in Caracas.
"We want to surround ourselves with good neighbors," Trump said. "We want to surround ourselves with stability."
The communist regime in Havana, now being led by Miguel Díaz-Canel, has been in power for 67 years. It celebrated another anniversary of the Fidel Castro-led revolution on New Year's Day.
"Cuba is, you know, not doing very well right now," Trump said. "That system has not been a very good one for Cuba. The people there have suffered for many, many years."
Now that the United States is "running" Venezuela, as Trump described it, the administration is in position to fully shut off Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba. The petroleum subsidies the Maduro regime has supplied Havana with were one of the few remaining sources of foreign aid the Cuban government has been able to count on.
That much was cheered by advocates for the end of communist rule on the island.
"The return of Venezuela to the rule of law and respect for human rights has international implications. The Cuban regime will no longer be able to benefit from Venezuelan oil," said Frank Calzon of the Center for a Free Cuba. "Iran, Russia, China Nicaragua and Cuba have lost a strategic ally in the Americas. And hopefully, with its huge oil resources properly managed, Venezuela great again."
The president's tough talk did not impress U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, a West Palm Beach Democrat who represents Florida's congressional district 22 that includes Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence.
"There is no way to predict what this president will do," Frankel said. "That kind of rhetoric is dangerous and raises the risk of escalation across the hemisphere. The United States should lead with diplomacy and stability, not threats that make the region — and us — less safe."
Rubio: Cuba is in 'total collapse'
Asked by Trump to speak about the situation in the Caribbean island 90 miles from U.S. shores, Secretary of State Marco Rubio added that Cuba is a "disaster."
"It's run by incompetent, senile men, but incompetent, nonetheless," he said. "It has no economy. It's in total collapse."
Earlier, Rubio had said the administration "will talk with anybody" but warned adversaries against gamesmanship.
"Don't play games with this president because it's not going to turn out well," the former U.S. senator from Florida and son of Cuban exiles said. "I guess that lesson was learned last night and we hope it'll be instructive going forward."
Trump has long been engaged in Cuba foreign policy, and domestic U.S. politics. He is the only presidential candidate ever endorsed by the Bay of Pigs veterans organization, the Brigade 2506 Association, first in 2016 and then in 2020 and 2024.
During his first term, Trump traveled to the Little Havana neighborhood in Miami, Florida, to give a speech to announce he was rolling back the Obama administration's engagement policies and reopening of tourism and trade ties with the Cuban regime led at the time by Raúl Castro, Fidel's younger brother.
"The previous administration's easing of restrictions on travel and trade does not help the Cuban people — they only enrich the Cuban regime," Trump said during a June 16, 2017 speech at the Manuel Artime Theater. "The outcome of the last administration's executive action has been only more repression and a move to crush the peaceful, democratic movement."
The then-45th president added: "Therefore, effective immediately, I am canceling the last administration's completely one-sided deal with Cuba."
Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor atThe Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him atafins@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post:After Venezuela raid, has Trump sets sight on regime change in Cuba?
