Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a rare direct appeal to the Cuban people in a video posted on Wednesday, the anniversary of their independence from Spain and U.S. military occupation, urging them to align with the Trump administration as it seeks to weaken the Cuban regime.
“President Trump is offering a new path between the U.S. and a new Cuba,” Mr. Rubio said in the brief video address, which was reported on Wednesday by Axios before it was posted.
In the address, which was in Spanish with English subtitles and posted on the State Department’s YouTube channel Wednesday morning, Mr. Rubio mentions the former Cuban leader, Raúl Castro, around the one-minute mark. Mr. Castro, who also served as defense minister, is expected to be indicted by the Justice Department on Wednesday for having ordered the shooting down of two civilian planes in 1996. Four people were killed.
Mr. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who has been fixated on Cuba for decades, blamed the country’s longstanding electricity and resource shortages on Mr. Castro and GAESA, the military-run conglomerate that controls most aspects of the country’s economy.
“The reason you are forced to survive 22 hours a day without electricity is not due to an oil blockade by the U.S.,” Mr. Rubio said in Spanish. “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.”
Cuba has been struggling with an energy crisis for more than two years because of crumbling infrastructure and a dwindling supply from its longtime benefactor, Venezuela. After the United States overthrew Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, earlier this year, it seized control of Venezuela’s oil industry and imposed an effective blockade barring all foreign oil from reaching Cuba. The Cuban government said last week that its oil reserves had run dry.
In its second term, the Trump administration has ramped up efforts to isolate the country’s communist government and draw it closer into the American orbit. Mr. Maduro’s ouster was seen in part as an effort to weaken Cuba.
Wednesday’s message is the first direct appeal Mr. Rubio has made to the people of Cuba. He has long been seen as a hawk on policy regarding the island nation and has made little secret of his hopes to topple or undermine its government.
On Monday, the Trump administration issued sanctions against some of Cuba’s top leaders, including military and party officials, in the hopes of further pressuring its government to overhaul its system.
Ali Watkins covers international news for The Times and is based in Belfast.
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