Original article by Jon Queally republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

“Cuba is a free, independent, and sovereign nation. Nobody dictates what we do,” said Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel in response to the latest threat from the authoritarian US president.

President Donald Trump was ripped by humanitarians and anti-war voices on Sunday after he again threatened Cuba by saying the US military would be used to prevent oil and other resources from reaching the country, threats that come just over a week after the American president ordered the unlawful attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

In a social media post Sunday morning, Trump declared:

Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of OIL and MONEY from Venezuela. In return, Cuba provided “Security Services” for the last two Venezuelan dictators, BUT NOT ANYMORE! Most of those Cubans are DEAD from last weeks U.S.A. attack, and Venezuela doesn’t need protection anymore from the thugs and extortionists who held them hostage for so many years. Venezuela now has the United States of America, the most powerful military in the World (by far!), to protect them, and protect them we will. THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT

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Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel rejected Trump’s latest comments and threat of military force, saying the island nation was ready to defend itself.

“Cuba is a free, independent, and sovereign nation. Nobody dictates what we do,” Diaz-Canel said in a social media post. “Cuba does not attack; it has been attacked by the US for 66 years, and it does not threaten; it prepares, ready to defend the homeland to the last drop of blood.”

Progressive critics of the US president were also quick to hit back. Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group CodePink, said the “true extortionist” in this situation is Trump himself, as she detailed the mutual benefit of the relationship between the Venezuelan and Cuban governments over recent decades:

“What is extortion?” Benjamin asks. “It’s what Donald Trump is doing: taking over those oil tankers, confiscating 30-50 million tons of oil—that is extortion. And saying to Venezuela, ‘We’re going to run your country.” Donald Trump is the greatest extortionist our country has seen.“

Reuters reports Sunday, citing shipping data, that Venezuela has been Cuba’s “biggest oil supplier, but no cargoes have departed from Venezuelan ports to the Caribbean country since the capture of Maduro.

Speaking with CBS News on Sunday, Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) said that Trump’s threats to strangle the people of Cuba by enforcing a resource blockade were “like magical” in her ears and those of her right-wing constituents who live in Miami’s large community of Cuban exiles.

Welcoming Trump’s efforts to bully Cuba into submission, Salazar claimed that Cuba’s government is “hanging by a threat” she said, before correcting herself, “a thread, I should say.”

Oddly—but notably—Salazar continued her remarks by saying it was Cuba that has been an “immense” threat to the United States, as she described it as a nation “with no water; they have no electricity; they have no food—nothing. So if you think Maduro is weak, Cuba is even weaker. And now they do not have one drop of oil coming from Venezuela.”

But progressive voices opposed to Trump’s authoritarian violations of international law, his bullying of allies and enemies alike with claims that the US can do whatever it likes in the name of national security and claims of national interest, are warning that the threats against Cuba and other nations represent a chilling development that must be met with international opposition and condemnation.

“The US blockade of Cuba is the longest-standing act of collective punishment in the world,” said David Adler, co-general coordinator of Progressive International, pointing to Trump’s remarks. “It is condemned by the entire international community every year at the UN. And now, the US president is doubling down on this cruel and illegal punishment. Enough.”

“This is an emergency,” Progressive International explained in a dispatch last week, warning about Trump’s overt hostility toward Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, and other nations in the wake of the US attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of Maduro and Flores.

“The United States is rapidly escalating its assault on the Americas—and the principle of self-determination at large,” warned the international advocacy group. “Under the banner of the Monroe Doctrine, Donald Trump and his cronies are leading a campaign of imperial aggression that stretches from Caracas to Havana, Mexico City to Bogotá.”

According to the dispatch:

What we are witnessing today is class struggle played out through imperial violence. The United States stands as the political and military instrument of capital: Big Oil bankrolling politics; arms manufacturers profiting from destruction; and financial power thriving on plunder and permanent war. These sections of capital pay for the policies they desire and are richly rewarded. The share prices of US oil majors soared around 10% following Maduro’s kidnapping, representing a return of around $100 billion on an investment of $450 million in the last US elections.

The government serves its donors, so aggression can proceed without consent. Public opinion has repeatedly shown opposition to U.S. military action in Venezuela — a gap between elite appetite and popular will bridged by force, not democracy.

Venezuela — like many nations before it — represents a different possibility: that the popular classes might govern themselves, control their resources, and chart a future beyond imperial command. And that possibility represents an existential threat to empire.

The group said Sunday’s latest threat by Trump against Cuba—openly saying that the US military might will be used to prevent life-sustaining resources from reaching the island nation—should be seen for what it is: a coercive “threat to strangle Cuba of critical energy and resources” at the end of a barrel of a gun.

“Through manipulation, coercion, and now direct military action,” the group warns, the US government under Trump “has made absolutely clear its intention to dominate Latin America.”

Original article by Jon Queally republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).