White House piles pressure on Cuba as island fights power cut / Photo: Jim WATSON - AFP
White House piles pressure on Cuba as island fights power cut
Washington piled pressure on Cuba's communist authorities Tuesday to allow free market reforms as the impoverished island scrambled to recover from a nationwide electricity blackout.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Cuba's decision announced this week to let exiles invest and own businesses did not go far enough.
"What they announced yesterday is not dramatic enough. It's not going to fix it. So they've got some big decisions to make," Rubio, a Cuban-American and vociferous critic of the island's ruling party, told reporters at the White House.
President Donald Trump, who just Monday had said he would "take" Cuba, added: "We'll be doing something with Cuba very soon."
Cuba's authorities are under increasingly crushing pressure, with Washington openly stating it wants to end the nearly seven-decades-old US standoff with the one-party communist state.
A total electricity breakdown on Monday underscored the parlous state of the economy. Cuba lost Venezuela as its chief regional ally and oil supplier this January after a US military operation to topple Venezuela's socialist leader Nicolas Maduro.
Power was restored to two-thirds of the country early Tuesday, including to 45 percent of the capital Havana, which is home to 1.7 million people.
"What we fear all the time is that the blackout will drag on and we will lose the little bit that we have in the fridge, because everything is so expensive," said Olga Suarez, a 64-year-old retiree.
"Otherwise we are used to it because here almost all the time you go to bed and wake up without electricity," she told AFP.
Adding another scare, a 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Cuba early Tuesday. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
- Trump to 'take' Cuba -
Cuba's ageing electricity generation system is in shambles, with daily power outages of up to 20 hours the norm in parts of the island, which lacks the fuel needed to generate power.
But since the US ouster of Maduro on January 3, the island's economy has been further hammered by a de facto US oil blockade.
No oil has been imported to the island since January 9, hitting the power sector while also forcing airlines to curtail flights to the island, a blow to the all-important tourism sector.
And Trump is explicitly saying he wants the Cuban government to fall.
"You know, all my life I've been hearing about the United States and Cuba. When will the United States do it?" Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday.
"I do believe I'll be...having the honor of taking Cuba," Trump said.
"Whether I free it, take it -- think I could do anything I want with it, you want to know the truth. They're a very weakened nation right now."
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