US secretary of state’s campaign of ‘maximum pressure’ is culmination of a personal pursuit spanning decades
Cubans outraged at US charges against Raúl Castro
Marco Rubio’s moment has finally arrived. The outcome of the Trump administration’sefforts to exert “maximum pressure” on Cubamay topple the 67-year-old communist government in Havana and direct the future of the US’s sway over the western hemisphere.
For Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who serves as both secretary of state and national security adviser, the US campaign marks his ascendancy in an administration where he has established himself as a trusted aide to Donald Trump and manoeuvred that position to advance a key goal: Washington’s right to assert its authority across Latin America.
The campaign against Cuba’s government is the culmination of a personal pursuit spanning decades. In a video released on Cuban independence day this week, Rubio said in Spanish that a US embargo was not the reason for the country’s privations, telling Cubans that “currently, the only thing standing in the way of a better future are those who control your country”.
“All roads have been leading to Cuba for [Rubio],” said a person who has known Rubio since his time as a local politician in south Florida. “He has wanted this for a long time and now he finally has the authority [to reach that goal].”
TheTrump administrationhas indicated that it is laying the groundwork to unseat Cuba’s government. “Other presidents have looked at this for 50, 60 years, doing something [about Cuba],” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. “And it looks like I’ll be the one that does it. So I would be happy to do it.”
The US aircraft carrier Nimitz and its strike group arrived in the southernCaribbeanSea on Thursday as part of a military buildup meant as a show of force against the Cuban government. And the Trump administration has been building a case that Cuba represents a national security threat to the US. Axios, citing administration officials, reported that Cuba had acquired more than 300 military drones and was considering using them to attack a US base at Guantánamo Bay, US ships, or even targets in Florida.
Rubio has played centre-stage in that effort, telling reporters on Thursday that Cuba posed an imminent national security threat to the US. “[Havana] not only has weapons they’ve acquired from Russia and China, but they also host Russian and Chinese intelligence presence in their country,” he said on Thursday.
Democrats already angered by Trump’s use of force in Iran have questioned the leaked intelligence as a potential pretext for the US to launch yet another military intervention pushed by hawks in his administration.
Source: Drudge Report
