President Trump said in a social media post that “no more oil or money” would be going to Cuba from Venezuela, and that the United States military would be involved in enforcing distance between the two countries.
It was a sharp turn from just days ago, when Mr. Trump said the Cuban government could fall on its own after the audacious capture by American forces of Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan leader facing U.S. drug charges. In the social media post on Sunday morning, the president urged Cuba to “make a deal, before it is too late.”
It is unclear what he meant by a deal — the Cuban government has little in the way of resources to offer the United States government — and the White House did not respond to a request for comment.
“Venezuela doesn’t need protection anymore from the thugs and extortionists who held them hostage for so many years,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Venezuela now has the United States of America, the most powerful military in the World (by far!), to protect them, and protect them we will.”
Mr. Trump also shared a Truth Social user’s post that suggested that Secretary of State Marco Rubio should be Cuba’s president. “Sounds good to me,” Mr. Trump wrote. Mr. Rubio has long seen taking control of Venezuela as a way to force a governmental change in Cuba.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel of Cuba responded to Mr. Trump by saying that his country was prepared to defend itself against American threats.
“Cuba is a free, independent and sovereign nation,” Mr. Díaz-Canel wrote on X. “No one tells us what to do.” He added that the Caribbean island was “ready to defend the homeland to the last drop of blood.”
The ousting of Mr. Maduro was a blow the strong relationship between Venezuela and Cuba, whose governments have close economic and political ties. The Cuban government had long helped Mr. Maduro keep his hold on power; in 2019, Cuban intelligence tipped off Mr. Maduro about a plot to overthrow his government, and Cuban operatives inside his country helped him crush it.
Mr. Trump’s command to Cuba to make a deal was also a message to Venezuela’s new leader, Delcy Rodríguez. She faces pressure to cut the United States into the country’s oil production — and, in turn, to cut off what it gives to other countries, including Cuba.
It is not clear whether Venezuela will bow to the American government’s demands to end oil shipments to Cuba. If it does not, Mr. Trump could order American forces — already engaged in a partial blockade of Venezuela’s oil industry — to seize any tankers that appear to be heading to the island.
Cuba has long held an outsize grip on policymakers in Washington, with the island’s proximity to Florida’s southern tip, its communist ideology, the historical resonance of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and, not least, the political power of South Florida’s large Cuban American community, which includes Mr. Rubio.
Katie Rogers is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President Trump.
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