HAVANA/WASHINGTON: Washington piled pressure on Cuba´s communist authorities on Tuesday to allow free market reforms as the impoverished island scrambled to recover from a nationwide electricity blackout.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Cuba´s decision announced this week to let exiles invest and own businesses did not go far enough.
“What they announced yesterday is not dramatic enough. It´s not going to fix it. So they´ve got some big decisions to make,” Rubio, a Cuban-American and vociferous critic of the island´s ruling party, told reporters at the White House.
President Donald Trump, who just on Monday had said he would “take” Cuba, added: “We´ll be doing something with Cuba very soon.”
Cuba´s authorities are under increasingly crushing pressure, with Washington openly stating it wants to end the nearly seven-decades-old US standoff with the one-party communist state. A total electricity breakdown on Monday underscored the parlous state of the economy.
