President Donald Trump's urging for Cuba to make a deal with his administration apparently has fallen on deaf ears, with Cuban leader Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez vowing to defend his island nation "to the last drop of blood."
"Cuba is a free, independent, and sovereign nation," Bermudez wrote in a translated, three-post reply on X to Trump's earlier Sunday call to make a deal.
"No one dictates what we do. Cuba does not aggress; it is aggressed upon by the United States for 66 years, and it does not threaten; it prepares, ready to defend the Homeland to the last drop of blood."
Trump threatened to cut off the island from its long-running reliance on Venezuelan riches and oil.
"Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of OIL and MONEY from Venezuela," he wrote on Truth Social. "In return, Cuba provided 'Security Services' for the last two Venezuelan dictators, BUT NOT ANYMORE!
"Most of those Cubans are DEAD from last weeks U.S.A. attack, and Venezuela doesn't need protection anymore from the thugs and extortionists who held them hostage for so many years.
"Venezuela now has the United States of America, the most powerful military in the World (by far!), to protect them, and protect them we will.
"THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.
"Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT."
Bermudez not only delivered the proverbial "over our dead body" response, but also called out America as devoid of "moral authority."
"They have no moral authority to point fingers at Cuba on anything, absolutely anything, those who turn everything into a business, even human lives," he wrote on X.
"Those who today hysterically drain their rage against our nation do so sick with fury over this people's sovereign decision to choose its political model."
Bermudez also pivoted from blaming socialism and communism to blaming the U.S. for its economic woes, suggesting sanctions are "extreme strangulation" of his island nation as the reason for it struggling economically.
"Those who blame the Revolution for the severe economic shortages we suffer should hold their tongues out of shame," he posted.
"Because they know it and acknowledge it: they are the fruit of the draconian measures of extreme strangulation that the U.S. has been applying to us for six decades and now threatens to surpass."
The exchange follows the U.S. capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, who was reportedly defended by a convoy of Cuban guards that were quickly wiped out by America's Delta Force without a single U.S. casualty.
Venezuela had been Cuba's principal oil benefactor, but recent shipping data shows no Venezuelan oil cargoes have reached the island since Maduro's capture, contributing to fuel shortages and economic strain.
Last Sunday, returning to the White House on Air Force One after the weekend Maduro capture operation, Trump predicted Cuba is going "to fall" without U.S. intervention.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.