The Trump administration appears to be preparing to intervene in Cuba's leadership, months after arresting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and effectively overthrowing that nation's government.
Speaking Tuesday during a White House meeting with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, President Donald Trump said Cuba is “in very bad shape” and that his administration will be doing something “very soon” with the island nation located about 90 miles south of Florida. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio elaborated on the president’s remarks, suggesting that Cuba needs “new people in charge.”
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“The bottom line is their economy doesn’t work. That revolution — it’s not even a revolution,” Rubio said. “That thing they have has survived on subsidies from the Soviet Union and now from Venezuela. They don’t get subsidies anymore, so they’re in a lot of trouble and the people in charge, they don’t know how to fix it, so they have to get new people in charge.”
The comments come as Cuba faces a deepening economic crisis, marked by an energy shortage that caused an island-wide blackout a day earlier. Trump has also indicated that it would be a “big honor” to take control of the struggling country “in some form.”
“Whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it if you want to know the truth,” Trump said. “They’re a very weakened nation right now. They were for a long time — very violent, very violent leaders. Castro was a very violent leader. His brother’s a very violent leader, extremely violent. That’s how they governed. They governed with violence, but a lot of people would like to go back.”
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Last week, Democrats on Capitol Hill introduced legislation that would prevent the U.S. from attacking Cuba without congressional approval. Democrats have repeatedly sought to use war powers resolutions to limit Trump’s unilateral foreign policy actions, though Republicans have largely backed his moves — including in Venezuela and the ongoing conflict against Iran, which has resulted in the death of that country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The United States and Cuba have had an unstable relationship for decades, but Trump’s shift toward military intervention to achieve geopolitical goals has increased speculation that Cuba could be next. Rubio, whose family immigrated from Cuba to the U.S. in the 1950s, has also frequently spoken out against Cuba’s current leadership.
