Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Thursday said, “We don’t want that [confrontation] but it is our duty to be ready to avoid it… and if it were unavoidable, to win it.”
Diaz-Canel made the remarks in Cuba’s capital Havana during a ceremony marking the 65th anniversary of the US’s failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion — a CIA-backed operation launched after US-owned properties and businesses on the island were nationalized by Fidel Castro and his fellow revolutionaries.
Diaz-Canel told thousands gathered for the event that the nation is “ready” for another attack as US President Donald Trump continues to threaten the tiny southern neighbor.
Cuba and the US: A long and contentious history between neighbors
The US and Cuba have been archenemies since the country’s 1959 revolution and Trump has breathed new life into the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, a US policy designed to thwart European meddling in the Western Hemisphere.
Late last year, Trump ordered US warships to the Caribbean to sink what the US has described as drug smuggling boats in the region.
In January, Trump cited the policy when the US military arrested Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and extradited him to the US to stand trial on drug trafficking charges.
After Maduro’s abduction, Trump ordered a blockade of oil and gas to Cuba and began threatening that “Cuba’s next.”
After launching a war against Iran on February 28, Trump has again floated the idea of “taking” Cuba, which has also suffered massive nationwide blackouts as a result of the US oil blockade.
Diaz-Canel: ‘Cuba is a besieged state’
In his Thursday remarks, Diaz-Canel called the current situation “very grave,” yet he also drew on the Socialist ideals espoused by Fidel Castro at the start of the Cuban revolution.
Further, he rejected Trump’s claims that Cuba is “a failing nation,” accusing the US of looking for a pretext for action.
“Cuba is not a failed state. Cuba is a besieged state,” said Diaz-Canel. “Cuba is a state facing multidimensional aggression: economic warfare, an intensified blockade and an energy blockade.”
Recently, talks between both sides — designed to reduce tensions — have been ongoing, yet few details have emerged.
The trade embargo that the US placed on Cuba in response to its revolution remains in place nearly 70 years later.
Edited by: Wesley DockeryÂ
