President Donald Trump said there could be a “friendly takeover of Cuba” but did not elaborate as he took questions from reporters as he left the White House on Friday.
The comment came after he was asked Wednesday about a deadly confrontation off the coast of Cuba in which Cuban officials said people on a U.S.-registered speedboat fired at Cuban border troops in an alleged attempt to “carry out an infiltration for terrorist purposes.”
When asked what he thought the boat was doing in Cuba and whether he believed the Cuban government was narrating the events, Trump replied: “The Cuban government is talking to us. They are in big trouble, as you know. They have no money, they have nothing right now. But they are talking to us.”
Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
Then he said, “Maybe we’ll have a friendly takeover of Cuba.”
“We could very well have a friendly takeover of Cuba,” Trump continued.
Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio is “dealing with Cuba” “and at a very high level.”
“You know, they don’t have any money, they don’t have oil, they don’t have food and it’s really a country in big trouble right now and they want our help,” he said.
The comments come a month after Trump announced a plan to impose additional tariffs on countries that supply oil to Cuba, declaring a national security emergency over the island.
In a Jan. 29 executive order, Trump said the “policies, practices and actions of the government of Cuba pose an unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security and foreign policy.
The order includes retaliatory tariffs on products sold into the US from “any other country that directly or indirectly sells or otherwise supplies oil to Cuba.”
A month after the fuel blockade, a senior United Nations official said warned Thursday that as a result of Trump’s executive order, the “humanitarian consequences are increasing by the day” in Cuba.
Trump provided no further updates on Friday on Wednesday’s deadly boat shooting.
After the incident, Rubio said on Wednesday that the US was working to independently verify what happened.
The Cuban government said Thursday that it is sharing information with the US through the channels that exist between the two countries.
Cuban officials said people on a Florida-registered speedboat opened fire on Cuban border guards as they approached the boat in an attempt to identify it.
According to the Cuban Interior Ministry, four people on the boat were killed and another six injured and detained during the firefight. At least one US citizen was among those killed and another injured in the incident, two US State Department officials and a White House official told ABC News on Thursday.
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