Almost 80% of Cubans and Cuban Americans in Florida support some form of U.S. military intervention in the country, according to a new poll.
The study surveyed 800 people living in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties and asked them whether they support some kind of intervention aimed at regime change, addressing the humanitarian situation on the island, or both.
79% said they support a military intervention, including 36% who back actions to topple the regime and 38% who would support regime change and dealing with the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the country.
"What the community is saying here is they're giving a green light to the Trump administration to go in militarily in Cuba and do whatever it is that they have to do to remove the regime," said Fernand Amandi, whose company is one of the two that conducted the poll for the Miami Herald.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has addressed such a possibility, anticipating that Havana will fight back against Washington should the Trump administration launch an invasion of the island.
Speaking to NBC News, Diaz-Canel warned the Trump administration against potentially invading the island or carrying out an operation similar to the one in Venezuela, when U.S. forces captured Venezuela's former authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro.
"If that happens, there will be fighting, and there will be a struggle, and we will defend ourselves, and if we need to die, we'll die, because as our national anthem says, 'Dying for the homeland is to live,'" Diaz-Canel added.
Elsewhere in the interview, the Cuban president said he won't step down despite the Trump administration's ongoing pressure. "In Cuba, the people who are in leadership positions are not elected by the U.S. government, and they don't have a mandate from the U.S. government," he said.
"We have a free sovereign state, a free state. We have self-determination and independence, and we are not subjected to the designs of the United States," he added, claiming that "stepping down is not part of our vocabulary."
A White House official reacted to the remarks, saying that the Trump administration is holding talks with the country and the president believes a deal can "be very easily made." "Cuba is a failing nation whose rulers have had a major setback with the loss of support from Venezuela," the official added.
