Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla accused U.S. counterpart Marco Rubio of carrying out a personal agenda when pushing for higher pressure on the region's authoritarian regimes.
"The current secretary of state was not born in Cuba, has never been to Cuba, and knows nothing about Cuba," Rodriguez Parrilla told The Associated Press.
The official went on to say that the island saw an opening to improve relations between the countries when President Donald Trump took office in January, but Rubio prevented any possibility of it happening due to his "very personal and corrupt agenda that he is carrying out, which seems to be sacrificing the national interests of the U.S. in order to advance this very extremist approach."
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment, but Rubio has repeatedly defended his stance against the regime. "The U.S. will continue to stand for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the people of Cuba, and make clear no illegitimate, dictatorial regimes are welcome in our hemisphere," Rubio said in July.
Another report from this week noted that Rubio is leading a push to further increase pressure on Venezuela's authoritarian government in order to oust authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro.
The New York Times reported on Monday that several top officials from the Trump administration are part of the push, discussing a campaign that would further escalate military pressure on the South American country.
Rubio has been arguing that Maduro is not the country's legitimate president and oversees drug-trafficking operations to the U.S., which he described as an "imminent threat." The initiative has the support of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
The U.S. Army has drawn up plans for strikes inside Venezuela, but the White House has not approved them, the outlet added. Since they claim Maduro leads a criminal organization, removing him could be framed as a counternarcotics operation.
President Donald Trump hinted at potential strikes on "land" against Venezuelan cartels on Tuesday, telling press "we'll see what happens with Venezuela." "We had a lot of drugs coming by water. We don't have any boats on the water. We hit a number of boats, Since we did that, we've had absolutely no drugs coming into the country via water because it was lethal. Now we're going to look very seriously at cartels coming by land," he said earlier this week.
Originally published on Latin Times
