US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that crisis-hit Cuba’s leadership must change as Washington renewed an offer on Wednesday of $100 million in aid if the communist-run island agrees to cooperate.
Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday.
Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions but Rubio, a Cuban-American and vociferous critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame including corruption by the military.
“It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Air Force One as he traveled with President Donald Trump to China.
“We’ll give them a chance. But I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Rubio said.
“I don’t think we’re going to be able to change the trajectory of Cuba as long as these people are in charge in that regime.”
Trump — who since the start of the year has deposed Venezuela’s leftist leader but seen less success in a war on Iran — has mused that Cuba could be next and that the United States could take over the island 145 kilometers (90 miles) off Florida.
Rubio said last week after talks at the Vatican that Cuba had rejected a US offer for $100 million in assistance, an assertion denied by Havana.
The State Department publicly renewed the proposal on Wednesday, a week after new US sanctions targeted key actors in Cuba’s state-controlled economy and their foreign partners.
“The regime refuses to allow the United States to provide this assistance to the Cuban people, who are in desperate need of assistance due to the failures of Cuba’s corrupt regime,” the State Department said in a statement.
Source: Insider Paper
