Even for Donald Trump, who is in the middle of a conquistador phase, the declaration was unusually crude. “I do believe I’ll be having the honor of taking Cuba,” he said in the Oval Office on March 16. “Whether I free it, take it — I think I could do anything I want with it, you want to know the truth. They’re a very weakened nation right now.”
The president is correct: Cuba is in a fragile state at the moment. But that’s mostly due to Trump, who instituted an oil blockade against the island nation in the wake of January’s Venezuela operation. Cuba is now on the verge of collapse — and the Cuban people are suffering greatly because of it.
