Trump’s threats to ‘take’ Cuba signal rising US pressure as island grapples with power crisis

National power outage is making life extremely difficult and may force Havana into biggest economic changes in 67 years Just a few hours after a nationwide electricity blackout struck Cuba, Donald Trump hinted at an even darker future for the island’s rulers. The country’s entire electricity system had collapsed on Monday afternoon, leaving about 10 million people without power. Emergency teams were still struggling to restore it when the US leader made his latest threat. “I believe I will have the honour of taking Cuba,” he mused to reporters. “I mean, whether I free it, take it – I think I could do anything I want.” The high-handed tone of the remarks shocked Cubans on the island and abroad. “Over the early decades of the 1900s, US ambassadors believed the US had the right to steer Cuban political life,” said Ada Ferrer, a historian whose Cuban memoir Keeper of My Kin is soon to be published. Such involvement was once known as “coercive influence”, Ferrer added. “But no politician has spoken as crudely about it as Trump just did; and no one has used that kind of explicit language in almost a century,” she said. “Trump says aloud the things for which hi