Political analysts and observers panned President Donald Trump's latest attempt at regime change on Thursday.
Trump quietly signed an executive order imposing tariffs on countries supplying oil to Cuba, a move that some analysts saw as a way to try to economically cripple the Cuban regime. The order was signed at a time when Trump is seeking to impose his influence on other countries like Venezuela, where he captured dictator Nicolás Maduro and brought him to the U.S. to stand trial on narco-terrorism charges, and Iran, which was on the receiving end of a vicious bombing campaign late last year.
"The United States has zero tolerance for the depredations of the communist Cuban regime," the order reads in part. "The United States will act to protect the foreign policy, national security, and national interests of the United States, including by holding the Cuban regime accountable for its malign actions and relationships, while also remaining committed to supporting the Cuban people’s aspirations for a free and democratic society."
Political analysts and observers shared their reactions on social media.
"To be clear he is literally trying to implode the Cuban economy and make it so innocent people either starve or somehow wage a revolution and replace their government with a US puppet. This man is satanic," political commentator Kyle Kulinski posted on X.
"Trump is going to increasingly use 'national emergency' powers to do what he wants. That’s the move Hitler and Peter Thiel’s favorite philosopher Carl Schmitt called the 'state of exception.' It is the death of all democracies," writer Jim Stewartson posted on X.
"These are functionally secondary sanctions intended to deprive Cuba's population of oil," Jack McGrath, editor at the Washington Report on the Middle East, posted on X. "This economic warfare is the latest attempt to induce regime change though collective punishment of civilians against a state that eagerly normalized relations with Washington a decade ago."