(A)Political - February 28th

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Maybe Cuba becomes our 51st State. Let’s find out why!

President Trump hinted at the possibility of Cuba coming into possession of the United States. Former President Bill Clinton gave testimony to the House Oversight Committee yesterday and emphatically stated that he did nothing wrong in relation to Epstein. AI Company Anthropic has refused to grant the Pentagon unfettered access to the use of their AI, and is now getting blacklisted from all federal agency work going forward.

• Trump Floats Possibility Of “Friendly Takeover Of Cuba”

• Former President Bill Clinton: “I Did Nothing Wrong” Relating To Epstein

• Anthropic Refuses Pentagon Demands For AI Usage, Gets Blacklisted From All Federal Agencies As A Result

Trump Floats Possibility Of “Friendly Takeover Of Cuba”

_{By: Atlas}

Trump Floats 'Friendly Takeover' of Cuba as Economic Pressure on Havana Intensifies

President Donald Trump raised the possibility of a peaceful American takeover of Cuba on Friday, making his most direct public statement yet about how he envisions the island's future as his administration tightens its grip on the Cuban economy.

Speaking to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before boarding Marine One for a trip to Texas, Trump said the Cuban government was already in talks with Washington at a senior level — and that those talks could lead somewhere significant.

"The Cuban government is talking with us. They're in a big deal of trouble, as you know. They have no money, they have no anything right now. But they're talking with us, and maybe we'll have a friendly takeover of Cuba," Trump said. "We could very well end up having a friendly takeover of Cuba."

He did not define what he meant by a "friendly takeover" and the White House did not respond to requests for further clarification. Trump added that Cuba is "a failed nation" and that its government "wants our help," and pointed to the large Cuban exile community in the United States as a constituency that stood to benefit from whatever comes next.

"We have people living here that want to go back to Cuba, and they're very happy with what's going on," Trump said.

The State of Cuba's Economy

The backdrop for Trump's remarks is a Cuban economy under severe strain. The island has been going through its worst economic crisis in decades — one that has accelerated sharply over the past several months. Cuba depended heavily on oil from Venezuela, but those shipments stopped after Trump administration forces removed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power on January 3. Mexico ended its oil shipments as well after Trump signed an executive order in late January threatening tariffs against any country supplying oil to Cuba, directly or indirectly.

The result has been crippling. Severe fuel shortages have triggered widespread blackouts, disrupted transportation, and left the country struggling to meet basic needs. The United Nations has warned of the potential for an imminent humanitarian collapse if fuel supplies are not restored. Reports have indicated that Cuba may have as few as six to seven weeks of fuel reserves remaining.

Trump, speaking Friday, summarized the situation in blunt terms: "They have no money, they have no oil, they have no food. And it's really right now a nation in deep trouble."

The U.S. has maintained a trade embargo on Cuba since 1962, the year after a failed CIA-sponsored invasion at the Bay of Pigs. That embargo remains in place.

Rubio's Role and the Talks Underway

Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio — a Cuban American who has been openly hawkish on Havana throughout his career — is handling negotiations with Cuban leaders at a "very high level." Earlier this month, Rubio was reported to have been holding talks with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the 41-year-old grandson of former Cuban President Raúl Castro and grand-nephew of Fidel Castro. Rubio met with Rodríguez Castro again on the sidelines of this week's Caribbean Community conference in St. Kitts and Nevis, according to published reports.

Cuba's government confirmed it has been in communication with U.S. officials but pushed back on the characterization that it was engaged in any high-level talks. Cuba's deputy foreign minister, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, posted on Friday — and then deleted — a statement insisting that the U.S. fuel embargo remained "in full force" and that nothing announced in recent days changed that reality.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has previously said his government was willing to engage with Washington, but only from a position of equality and with full respect for Cuba's sovereignty and self-determination.

Rubio had already made the administration's goals clear. During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in late January, he was asked whether he would commit to not seeking regime change in Cuba. He declined.

"Regime change? Oh, no. I think we would love to see the regime there change," Rubio said. "That doesn't mean we are going to make a change, but we would love to see a change. There's no doubt about the fact that it would be of great benefit to the United States if Cuba was no longer governed by an autocratic regime."

He also cited the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which requires a democratic transition in Cuba before any U.S. president can normalize relations. "It was codified in law, and it requires regime change in order for us to lift the embargo," Rubio said.

The Speedboat Incident and Rising Tensions

Trump's comments on Friday came two days after a deadly incident off Cuba's northern coast. A Florida-registered speedboat carrying 10 armed Cuban nationals from the United States entered Cuban waters and opened fire on a Cuban patrol. Cuban border guards responded, killing four of those aboard and wounding six others. One Cuban official was also injured.

Cuba's government described the group as attempting "an infiltration for terrorist purposes." Rubio denied that any U.S. government personnel were involved and said the Department of Homeland Security and the Coast Guard were investigating what happened.

The incident added a sharp new layer of tension to an already volatile situation. It came in the same week the U.S. Treasury Department announced it would allow the resale of Venezuelan oil to Cuba — but only to benefit Cuba's private sector, with no transactions permitted involving the Cuban government, its military, or intelligence services. Cuba's deputy foreign minister argued the measure changed nothing of substance, given that the broader embargo remained intact.

More than 40 U.S. civil society organizations sent a letter to Congress on Friday calling on legislators to push the administration to reverse what they characterized as an aggressive posture toward Cuba. The letter, signed by groups including the Alliance of Baptists, ActionAid USA, and the Presbyterian Church, argued that policies designed to cut off the island's oil supply amounted to collective punishment and a violation of international humanitarian law.

A panel of United Nations human rights experts reached a similar conclusion earlier this month, characterizing the fuel blockade as "an extreme form of unilateral economic coercion" that exceeded any legitimate security rationale.

Context and What Comes Next

Trump's Friday remarks fit into a broader pattern of statements about expanding American influence in the Western Hemisphere. Since returning to the White House, he has proposed to "own" Gaza, spoken about controlling parts of Greenland where U.S. military bases are located, and touted the capture of Maduro as a success at his State of the Union address earlier this week — where he also announced that more than 80 million barrels of Venezuelan oil had been transferred into U.S. government possession.

Cuba has occupied a central place in that broader vision. Since the January raid in Venezuela, Trump has publicly speculated about whether Havana's government is nearing collapse, and his administration has progressively tightened the screws — including through the January executive order on tariffs, the fuel blockade, and $6 million in humanitarian aid channeled through the Catholic Church rather than the Cuban government.

Pedro Freyre, a prominent figure in the Cuban exile community and a lawyer who works with companies seeking to operate on the island, said Trump's language pointed toward an economic arrangement rather than a political one — potentially similar to the deal struck with Venezuela, where existing regime figures could remain in place under new economic terms.

William LeoGrande, a professor of government at American University, suggested the administration was focused on bringing the Cuban exile community along with any shift in policy, noting that the U.S. chargé d'affaires in Havana had recently traveled to Miami and Madrid — cities with large Cuban diaspora populations — rather than focusing primarily on direct engagement with the Cuban government.

Trump gave no timeline for what he envisions. "We've had a lot of years of dealing with Cuba," he said Friday. "I've been hearing about Cuba since I'm a little boy, but they're in big trouble, and something very well could happen — something positive."

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