Trump: Cuba to get no more oil from Venezuela, should make a deal ‘before it is too late’
This story raises questions about governance, accountability, and American values.
The mainstream framing treats Trump’s warning to Cuba as brinkmanship layered on top of a “dramatic climax. ” It’s a familiar impulse: focus on tone, skip the strategic reality that Havana and Caracas have long operated as a mutually reinforcing project aimed at the United States and our allies. Cutting off Venezuelan oil to Cuba isn’t cruelty; it’s leverage tied to **national security** and **regional stability**.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel (C) flutters a Venezuelan and Cuban national flags in support of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in Havana on January 3, 2026, after US forces captured him. President Donald Trump said Saturday that US forces had captured Venezuela's leader Nicolas Maduro after bombing the capital Caracas and other cities in a dramatic climax to a months-long standoff between Trump and his Venezuelan arch-foe.
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
The mainstream framing treats Trump’s warning to Cuba as brinkmanship layered on top of a “dramatic climax.” It’s a familiar impulse: focus on tone, skip the strategic reality that Havana and Caracas have long operated as a mutually reinforcing project aimed at the United States and our allies.
Cutting off Venezuelan oil to Cuba isn’t cruelty; it’s leverage tied to national security and regional stability. If Cuba wants energy and economic relief, it should not come as a subsidy for intelligence cooperation, repression, and sanctions evasion. A deal “before it is too late” is not a threat to ordinary Cubans so much as a demand for clear consequences for regimes that bet against America.
What’s missing is the rule of law question after years of impunity across borders. Power without accountability breeds chaos.
The principle at stake is public trust: policy should protect Americans first, and it should be predictable, enforceable, and rooted in the security of our hemisphere.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.