The island nation will not be getting any oil from Venezuela, the US president has said

Cuba is about to collapse "pretty soon," US President Donald Trump has claimed. His words came amid reports that Washington is planning a total oil blockade of the island nation in a bid to instigate a coup against President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

After abducting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month, the US has set its sights on Cuba, which Trump claims is "ready to fall" next. Speaking to reporters during a trip to Iowa on Tuesday, the US president stated that "Cuba is really a nation that is very close to falling." According to the president, Havana was getting oil and money from Caracas, but that it would not be getting them "anymore."

Shortly after Maduro's kidnapping, Trump said Washington would "run" Venezuela during a transitional period and needs "total access... to the oil and to other things in their country." US Energy Secretary Chris Wright has stated that Washington intends to control Venezuela's oil sales "indefinitely."

Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, who was sworn in after Maduro's capture, declared that no "foreign agent" would control Venezuela or turn it into a "colony." She still tried to placate Washington by opening Venezuela's oil sector to American companies.

Last week, Politico reported that the US was planning an oil blockade of Cuba to place it in a "chokehold to kill the regime." Earlier, the Wall Street Journal also reported that Washington was looking for Cuban government insiders to help orchestrate a regime-change operation by the end of the year.

Cuba has been under a US trade embargo since the 1960s, but it has not faced the prospect of an American naval blockade since 1962, when President John F. Kennedy placed it under "quarantine" for 13 days to prevent the transfer of Soviet missiles to the Cuban military.

Diaz-Canel earlier dismissed Trump's threats by saying that "nobody dictates what we do." Moscow also condemned what it called the "language of blackmail and threats" against Cuba as well as decades of "illegitimate and illegal sanctions" by the US.