Trump says Cuba 'ready to fall,' threatens Colombia after Venezuela attack

WASHINGTON ‒ President Donald Trump predicted Cuba's communist government is on the verge of collapse following the United States' capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Trump on Jan. 4 also threatened United States military intervention to oust Colombian President Gustavo Petro and reaffirmed his desire for the United States to annex Greenland, which is controlled by Denmark.

Trump suggested Venezuela won't be the only Latin American country to face upheaval as he addressed reporters on Air Force One on the flight back to Washington from Florida, where he spent the holidays.

"Cuba is ready to fall," Trump said. "Cuba looks like it's ready to fall. I don't know if they're going to hold out. But Cuba now has no income. They got all of their income from their Venezuela, from the Venezuelan oil. They're not getting any of it. And Cuba is literally ready to fall."

Trump added: "You have a lot of great Cuban Americans who are going to be very happy about this."

A recent blockade the Trump administration imposed on Venezuela oil cut Cuba off to a critical energy supply that the island nation relies on. Trump has said U.S. companies will soon take over Venezuela's oil supplies following the capture of Maduro, a close ally of the Cuban government. Several Cubans died during the U.S. attack on Venezuela that led to Maduro's capture.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a key architect of the Venezuela attack, is a longtime critic of the Cuban government led by President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who condemned the U.S. actions in Venezuela.

Rubio issued a warning to Cuba in a Jan. 3 news conference as Trump and his top officials discussed the Venezuelan attack. "If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I would be concerned ‒ at least a little bit," Rubio said.

'Sounds good to me,' Trump says of US operation in Colombia

As for Colombia, led by the leftist Petro, Trump said the country is "run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States."

"He's not going to be doing it very long ‒ let me tell you," Trump said. Asked whether the U.S. will conduct an operation in Colombia, Trump said: "Sounds good to me."

Petro, in response to Trump's threat, issued a lengthy statement on X: "If you arrest the president whom a good part of my people want and respect, you will unleash the popular jaguar."

"Every soldier of Colombia has an order from now on: every commander of the public force who prefers the flag of the US to the flag of Colombia must immediately withdraw from the institution by order of the bases and the troops and mine," Petro said.

Trump: 'Let's talk about Greenland in 20 days'

In a 37-minute exchange with reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump also made clear that he wants the U.S. to acquire Greenland – an idea he's pushed throughout the first year of his return to the White House.

"We’ll worry about Greenland in about two months," Trump said with a smile after saying he's focused for now on Venezuela. "Let’s talk about Greenland in 20 days."

"I will say this about Greenland," Trump added. "We need Greenland from a national security situation. It's so strategic. Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it. I can tell you."

Mette Frederiksen, president of Denmark, in a statement urged Trump to "stop the threats against a historically close ally," saying the U.S. "has no right to annex one of the three countries in the Commonwealth."

"The Kingdom of Denmark - and thus Greenland - is part of NATO and is therefore covered by the alliance's security guarantee," Frederiksen said. "We already have a defense agreement between the Kingdom and the United States today that gives the United States wide access to Greenland. And we, on the part of the Kingdom, have invested significantly in security in the Arctic."

Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.