Trump floats ‘friendly takeover’ of Cuba

[240B]

Trump floats ‘friendly takeover’ of Cuba

The Hill
by Laura Kelly
02/27/26

President Trump on Friday suggested the U.S. could carry out a “friendly takeover” of Cuba, as the president has used a fuel blockade to increase the pressure on the communist regime in Havana.

“The Cuban government is talking with us. They’re in a big deal of trouble, as you know. They have no money, no anything right now,” Trump told reporters. “Maybe we’ll have a friendly takeover of Cuba. We could very well end up having a friendly takeover of Cuba.”

Trump imposed a fuel blockade on the island in an executive order at the end of January in a push to collapse the regime, which relies heavily on energy and food imports.

The United Nations’s top official for Cuba warned on Wednesday that daily life on the island is “becoming fragile” with increased strains on health care, water services and food distribution.

U.S. officials reportedly met Thursday with the grandson of 94-year-old former president Raúl Castro, considered the de facto leader of the totalitarian regime, on the sidelines of a conference in the Caribbean attended by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Castro’s grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, serves as his grandfather’s bodyguard and is believed to oversee Cuba’s armed forces’s conglomerate, known as GAESA, which controls much of the island’s economy. The Miami Herald reported that in 2024, GAESA had about $18 billion in assets and in unknown bank accounts.

(more)
https://thehill.com/policy/international/5759118-cuba-friendly-takeover-trump/

[Cyber Liberty]

I don't think so.  Why should we rescue the communist government from itself?

[libertybele]

I don't think so.  Why should we rescue the communist government from itself?

Trump has 'floated' too many takeovers for my comfort.

[mountaineer]

Trump has 'floated' too many takeovers for my comfort.

It's exhausting.

[240B]

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Trump frequently says things as 'testing the water' with no follow through.
He just wants to gauge the reaction. He does this a lot.

[jafo2010]

They would sooner starve to death than capitulate to the USA. 

Typical Trump rhetoric!  That is his wishful thinking, that they make it easy and allow us to takeover their nation, to rescus the island state from starvation and ruin.  NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!!!

[DefiantMassRINO]

Why the hell would we want another Puerto Rico?

[mountaineer]

Why the hell would we want another Puerto Rico?

Indeed.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Mr. President --- How about for the rest of the year you focus on friendly affordability for the US?   And, how about doing it like your presidency depends on it?

[mountaineer]

I'd like to see the economy (incl. reducing the debt and the deficit) at #1. Cuba is pretty far down the list.

[roamer_1]

I have no problem with taking Cuba over... In a friendly manner anyway... Cuba is a jewel of the Gulf, or should be.

Get the government out of the way and it would become a very prosperous region on tourism alone. A stable, capitalist system based on Yankee bucks would have developers salivating. And many, many Cuban people from the US would flock back to Cuba in a minute.

It would be a matter of years, not decades, and Cuba would be that jewel again.

[Cyber Liberty]

I have no problem with taking Cuba over... In a friendly manner anyway... Cuba is a jewel of the Gulf, or should be.

Get the government out of the way and it would become a very prosperous region on tourism alone. A stable, capitalist system based on Yankee bucks would have developers salivating. And many, many Cuban people from the US would flock back to Cuba in a minute.

It would be a matter of years, not decades, and Cuba would be that jewel again.

I'd be interested to hear what my good friend @Luis Gonzalez has to say about this.  He, Mrs. Liberty and I have broken bread a couple of times. I got my first taste of Gator!  He knows what's what in Cuba....

[roamer_1]

I'd be interested to hear what my good friend @Luis Gonzalez has to say about this.  He, Mrs. Liberty and I have broken bread a couple of times. I got my first taste of Gator!  He knows what's what in Cuba....

Venezuela is another one. It was a regional moneymaker and powerhouse. A diamond of the southern continent. The potential there is already proven, and merely needs to be restored.

The only criticism I have of all that is perhaps in biting off more than we can chew... Maybe pick em one at a time. 

But then, the situation is so desperate in both cases that it is hard to turn a blind eye to either one. 

[Bigun]

I'd be interested to hear what my good friend @Luis Gonzalez has to say about this.  He, Mrs. Liberty and I have broken bread a couple of times. I got my first taste of Gator!  He knows what's what in Cuba....

  

[Luis Gonzalez]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUUWXUQjYGi/?igsh=MWY5cTk4djI4MDg0bA==