WASHINGTON
\nUS Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that crisis-hit Cuba\u2019s leadership must change as Washington renewed an offer on Wednesday of $100 million in aid if the communist-run island agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday.
\nCuba\u2019s leaders have blamed US sanctions but Rubio, a Cuban-American and vociferous critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame including corruption by the military. \u201cIt\u2019s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it\u2019s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,\u201d he told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Air Force One as he traveled with President Donald Trump to China.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ll give them a chance. But I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to happen,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to be able to change the trajectory of Cuba as long as these people are in charge in that regime.\u201d
\nTrump \u2014 who since the start of the year has deposed Venezuela\u2019s leftist leader but seen less success in a war on Iran \u2014 has mused that Cuba could be next and that the United States could take over the island 145 kilometers (90 miles) off Florida. Rubio said last week after talks at the Vatican that Cuba had rejected a US offer for $100 million in assistance, an assertion denied by Havana.
\nThe State Department publicly renewed the proposal on Wednesday, a week after new US sanctions targeted key actors in Cuba\u2019s state-controlled economy and their foreign partners. \u201cThe regime refuses to allow the United States to provide this assistance to the Cuban people, who are in desperate need of assistance due to the failures of Cuba\u2019s corrupt regime,\u201d the State Department said in a statement.
\n\u201cThe decision rests with the Cuban regime to accept our offer of assistance or deny critical (life)-saving aid and ultimately be accountable to the Cuban people for standing in the way of critical assistance,\u201d it said. It said the support would include direct humanitarian assistance and funding for \u201cfast and free\u201d Internet access \u2014 which presumably would benefit dissidents in the one-party state that restricts media.
\nCuba has seen a series of rare protests as economic misery grips the island of 9.6 million people.
\nOn Wednesday, several dozen people, some banging pots and pans, protested against power outages in the San Miguel del Padron neighborhood on Havana\u2019s outskirts, a resident told media.
\nSeveral other neighborhoods saw similar protests by evening, with residents in Playa shouting, \u201cTurn on the lights!,\u201d witnesses told media . Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel acknowledged the \u201cparticularly tense\u201d situation but pinned blame squarely on the United States. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that crisis-hit Cuba\u2019s leadership must change as Washington renewed an offer on Wednesday of $100 million in aid if the communist-run island agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524229,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-546522","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n