After Iran, Trump Vows To ‘Take Care’ of Cuba

As Havana and the United Nations accuse America of exacerbating a humanitarian crisis in Cuba, Washington is tightening sanctions against Castroite economic titans — and President Trump vows to soon “take care” of the Communist regime. “I like to do one thing at a time,” Mr. Trump told reporters Thursday when asked about his plans for Cuba. “We’ll take care of the Islamic Republic of Iran and as soon as that is done, on our way back, we’ll just make a little brief stopover” at the Communist isle. As he spoke, Turtle Bay officials indicated that an American energy “blockade” exacerbates the humanitarian crisis on the island. The Cuban UN ambassador, Ernesto Soberon Guzman, outright said America is the “direct cause” of the suffering.“Let’s talk about the real reason, the actual reason Cubans don’t have electricity, fuel, or food,” the American UN ambassador, Mike Waltz, retorted. “It’s not because of the embargo, or because of an ‘oil blockade’ which is untrue and fake. That is the tired excuse Havana has been selling for many, many decades.”The UN general assembly passes an annual resolution supported by the vast majority of its 193 member countries, condemning the American embargo, first imposed by President Kennedy in 1962. The Castro regime traditionally blames America for its own economic policies. Mr. Trump has imposed a partial blockade of oil. The isle’s heavily subsidized energy source, Venezuela dried up in January, when President Micolas Maduro was ousted at Caracas. Washington is trying to choke up the Castro regime rather than the Cuban people, Mr. Waltz told the UN session. America “stands with the people of Cuba. Period. Stop. No question,” Mr. Waltz said, citing his own Florida roots and friendships with Cuban emigres there. “What the United States does not stand with is the communist regime that has failed them, that has jailed them, and that has stolen from them.”To drive the point home, the Department of State announced a new set of sanctions on Thursday, targeting several Raul Castro relatives and allies, including President Miguel Diaz-Canel. “The Trump Administration will continue to target the Cuban regime’s subversive network, those who enable its subversive operations, and those who profit while the Cuban people suffer,” the State Department wrote in explaining the new sanctions. The new measures follow earlier sanctions that were imposed on several regime-tied corporations. Under American pressure, Canada withdrew from joint mining and hospitality operations that mostly enriched regime elites at Havana. Sanctions were also imposed on Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. and its foreign enablers.Founded in 1995 by Raul Castro and still controlled by his allies and family members, this mega conglomerate, known as Gaesa, now controls up to 70 percent of the Cuban economy. Even when Cuba was receiving oil from Venezuela for exchange of oppression and medical services, electric outages were routinely experienced across the country. Corruption, incompetence, neglect, and theft by officials depleted the electric grid. Now, though, electricity is so scarce that homes are dark more often than they are lit. Electric outages last up to 22 hours a day at Havana and for days on end elsewhere on the isle, the U.N. resident coordinator in Cuba, Francisco Pichón, said Thursday via video from the Cuban capital. Because of fuel shortages, the national water system operates at 37 percent capacities and only 30 percent of essential medicine is available. He indicated that America’s blocking of oil imports is the top cause. “Since the October 2025 hurricane, just last year, the United States has provided $9 million in humanitarian assistance that goes directly to the Cuban people, not through Havana’s corrupt hands,” Ambassador Waltz said. Now, he added, Washington is offering $100 million more for food, hygiene, and water treatment “to be distributed directly to the Cuban people through the Catholic Church, in full coordination, and other reliable institutions.”Mr. Waltz cited a Miami Herald report that documented how Gaesa and its subsidiaries “have looted at least $18 billion from the Cuban people — money that should have gone to food, fuel, and hospitals, medicine, and power. Instead, it’s gone to regime elites, luxury hotels, security services, and the machinery of repression.”Cuba’s Mr. Guzman, though, argued that “the best assistance that the U.S. government could provide to the noble Cuban people at this time or any time is to de-escalate the energy, economic, commercial and financial blockade measures.”

After Iran, Trump Vows To ‘Take Care’ of Cuba

More from the New York Sun

‘60 Minutes’ Correspondent Scott Pelley Fired One Day After Criticizing His Bosses: Will The Network Be Forced To Pay Out His Contract?

Trump Administration Cites Forced Labor For New Tariffs on Dozens of Countries

‘Jerome’ Poignantly Highlights Schemers and Dreamers in the American West

More from the New York Sun

‘60 Minutes’ Correspondent Scott Pelley Fired One Day After Criticizing His Bosses: Will The Network Be Forced To Pay Out His Contract?

Trump Administration Cites Forced Labor For New Tariffs on Dozens of Countries

‘Jerome’ Poignantly Highlights Schemers and Dreamers in the American West

Ukraine Moves Battle Lines With Its Mid-Range Drones

‘You’re On’: Senators Gillibrand and Cruz Bet on the NBA Finals

CMS To Make GLP-1s Eligible to Medicare Patients for $50 a Month

Democrats Get Their Dream Scenario in California with Becerra and Hilton Likely Headed to the Runoff

Social Mobility 101