‘I can do anything I want with it’: Trump confirms he’s eying another country for the ‘taking’

The U.S. under President Donald Trump has decapitated both the Venezuelan and Iranian regimes. Trump confirmed on Monday that he now has his sights set on another country.

When asked whether the “next” country up was Cuba and whether the approach taken will “look like Iran or Venezuela,” Trump said, “Can’t tell you that. I can tell you that they’re talking to us. It’s a failed nation. They have no money. They have no oil. They have no nothing. They have nice land. They have nice landscape, you know. It’s a beautiful island. I think they have great people.”

‘They’re a very weakened nation.’

After extolling the entrepreneurial spirit of the Cuban people and noting that many expatriates would love to visit the communist-controlled island, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, “All my life I’ve been hearing about the United States and Cuba. ‘When will the United States do it?'”

Trump said he believes he will have “the honor of taking Cuba. … That’s a big honor.”

When asked to clarify what such a takeover might look like, the president said, “Free it, take it — I think I can do anything I want with it, if you want to know the truth. They’re a very weakened nation.”

Cuba’s electrical grid completely collapsed on Monday. The Cuban Ministry of Energy and Mines noted in social media posts on Tuesday that efforts were still under way to restore electric systems around the country.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said that the impact of the American-imposed oil blockade, which has been in effect for months, “is tremendous.”

RELATED: Cubans torch communist headquarters in protest of blackouts and food shortages

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel at an “anti-imperialist” protest in front of the U.S. embassy in Havana.

Trump issued an executive order on Jan. 29, accusing the Cuban government of “extraordinary actions that harm and threaten the United States” and signaling that any nation that directly or indirectly sells oil to Cuba will have its exports to the U.S. slapped with additional tariffs.

In addition to prompting Mexico to suspend energy shipments to Cuba and cutting off the flow of Venezuelan oil to Havana, the U.S. has reportedly seized shipments bound for the island and intercepted vessels searching for fuel in the Caribbean Sea.

Cuba’s energy crisis and worsening food shortage have exacerbated internal tensions and prompted protests. On Friday, for instance, protesters reportedly burned and ransacked a local communist party building — an incident Díaz-Canel suggested was the result of “distress” caused by the U.S. blockade.

U.S. and Cuban officials have been negotiating over the the fate of the island, four sources said to be familiar with the talks told the New York Times. The U.S. has reportedly signaled to the Cubans that the Trump administration might be satisfied with Díaz-Canel and some regime elders faithful to the murderous ideals of Fidel Castro getting the boot and the Cuban people figuring out the next steps.

“Direct conversations with the United States are about finding, through dialogue, solutions to the differences that exist between the two countries,” Lianys Torres Rivera, Cuba’s chief of mission to the U.S., told Politico. “The conversations are not about Cuba’s internal affairs — our constitutional system, our political model, our social and socialist economy which we Cubans have built.”

On Sunday, Trump told reporters on Air Force One, “We’re talking to Cuba, but we’re going to do Iran before Cuba,” adding that “people have been waiting 50 years” for possible action on the Cuban front.

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