Emerging from latest blackout, Cuba says ready for any potential US attack | Oil and Gas News

US President Trump, who cut off oil supplies to Cuba after the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Maduro, has threatened to seize the island nation.

The Cuban government has said it is prepared for any potential attack from the United States as the island nation begins to recover from another power outage due to a Washington-imposed oil blockade that has pushed its economy to the brink.

Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossio responded Sunday to US President Donald Trump’s threats to seize Cuba, insisting the country was “historically ready to mobilize as a nation for military aggression.”

“We don’t think it’s something likely, but we would be naive if we didn’t prepare,” de Cossio told NBC’s Meet the Press.

His comments came a day after the latest collapse of the country’s aging national grid, which left millions of people in the dark. Saturday’s outage was the second in the past week and the third in March.

The State Electric Union and the Ministry of Energy and Mines said some 72,000 customers in the capital Havana, including five hospitals, had access to electricity again early Sunday. But that number was only a fraction of Havana’s total population of around two million.

The Cuban Electricity Union, which reports to the Ministry of Energy and Mines, said the total disconnection of the national system was due to an unexpected shutdown of a production unit at the Nuevitas thermoelectric plant, in Camaguey province, without providing details on the specific cause of the outage.

Trump, who began blocking oil from reaching the island after removing Cuba’s ally, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, earlier this year, has warned potential oil exporters that they could face high tariffs.

According to President Miguel Díaz-Canel, Cuba has not received oil from foreign suppliers for three months. The country produces just 40 percent of the fuel it needs to power its economy.

On March 16, Trump intensified his rhetoric against Cuba, saying the leadership was on the verge of collapse and saying he hoped to have the “honor” of taking the country.

De Cossio denied that the nature, structure or composition of the Cuban government was the subject of negotiations as part of what Havana called a “serious and responsible” dialogue with Washington launched earlier this month. He added that a change in the ruling system was “absolutely” off the table during the discussions.

This week, Gen. Francis Donovan, head of the U.S. Southern Command responsible for overseeing armed forces in Latin America, told lawmakers at a U.S. Senate hearing on Trump’s military action in the region that troops were not planning an invasion of Cuba or actively preparing to take control of the communist-run island.

But, he added, the United States is prepared to respond to any threats to the U.S. embassy, ​​defend its Guantanamo Bay base and assist the U.S. government in its efforts to deal with any mass migration from the island, if necessary.

The Cuban government has reportedly refused a request from the embassy in Havana to allow it to import diesel for its generators in response to the oil blockade, the Associated Press reported Saturday, citing two U.S. officials.