Trump Gave Disaster Relief to ‘Not in Hurricane Zone’ Cuba

President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday at the White House that Cuba is not in a hurricane zone, which was news to meteorologists everywhere and to his own administration.

He began his remarks by calling Cuba a “beautiful island” with “great weather.”

“They’re not in a hurricane zone, which is nice for a change, you know?” he continued. “They won’t be asking us for money for hurricanes every week…I do believe I’ll have the honor of taking Cuba. That’s a big honor.”

But the president seems to have forgotten that just two months ago, his administration delivered $3 million in disaster relief to Cuba after Hurricane Melissa slammed the island last October as a Category 3 storm. Melissa destroyed homes, blocked roads, and left thousands of people without water and power.

The Trump administration said it sent charter flights from Miami in mid-January to bring food kits, hygiene and water treatment kits, household items, and kitchen supplies to 24,000 people in the hardest-hit areas of Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, Granma, and Guantanamo. The administration was working with the Catholic Church to ensure “assistance reaches the Cuban people directly and without regime interference.”

“The United States remains steadfast in supporting the Cuban people’s post-disaster recovery,” a January 26 press release from the U.S. Department of State reads. “The first in a series of shipments of humanitarian assistance are designed to reach those most in need, bypassing regime interference, and ensuring transparency and accountability. Our humanitarian assistance is part of a broader effort to stand with the Cuban people as they seek a better future.”

A month later, in February, the U.S. announced that it would deliver an additional $6 million in supplies amid an ongoing humanitarian and energy crisis, especially for those still affected by last year’s storm.

As the New York Times pointed out ahead of Hurricane Melissa’s landfall in Cuba, in a story headlined “Cuba Is No Stranger to Hurricanes,” 10 major hurricanes (Category 3 or higher) have hit the island. Melissa has since brought that total up to 11. At least two storms were major Category 5 storms, including Hurricane Irma in 2017, which brought maximum wind speeds of 167 miles per hour to the northern coast of the island.

In response to Trump’s outlandish claim, Miami meteorologist John Morales wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, “The Sharpie in his brain at work🤨.” It appears Morales is referring to a snafu from 2019, when Trump showed a National Weather Service map of Hurricane Dorian’s path that seemed to have been altered with a black marker to include Alabama.

New Times has reached out to the White House for comment.