WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that Cuba’s people can have a “new relationship” with the US in a message condemning the Communist island’s current leadership.
“The reason you are forced to survive 22 hours a day without electricity is not due to an oil blockade by the US,” Rubio said in the Spanish-language message posted to X, blaming the GAESA conglomerate run by Cuba’s armed forces and founded by former leader Raul Castro.
“Cuba is controlled by GAESA,” the secretary said. “While you suffer, these businessmen have $18 billion in assets and control 70% of Cuba’s economy.”
“President Trump is offering a new relationship between the US and Cuba. But it must be with you, the Cuban people, and not GAESA,” continued Rubio.
He reiterated an offer of $100 million in food and medical assistance from the US in exchange for meaningful reforms on the communist island, where the economic situation is growing even more dire. The aid would be distributed through the Catholic Church and other non-government organizations.
Groundwork has been laid to get the aid into the country. Mike Hammer, the acting US ambassador to Havana, met with officials there on Monday, Agence France Presse reported.
“We have been in close coordination with the Cubans. We had a meeting yesterday (Monday) and continue to pursue that proposal aggressively, contrary to some of the lies of the Cuban ministry of foreign affairs,” an official said.
Trump has been critical of the island’s leadership but he stopped short of announcing a military type incursion — similar to his actions in Venezuela — to overturn the government.
“We’re going to see,” the president told reporters Wednesday afternoon when asked what was next for Cuba.
“It’s a failing nation, you see, that is falling apart. They have no oil,” he said. “We’re there to help the families, the people.”
But “there won’t be escalation,” he went on to say. “I don’t think that there should be. Look, the place is falling apart. It’s a mess, and they sort of lost control.”
The president wants to see more private businesses and ownership in Cuba along with Democratic freedoms like free speech.
And it’s not just the State Department that’s exerting pressure on the island.
The Justice Department unsealed an indictment of Raul Castro, charging the former president of Cuba with ordering the shootdown of two Miami-based rescue planes in 1996, killing four people.
Attorney General Todd Blanche didn’t answer directly when asked if the US had plans to bring Castro to Florida to stand trial, saying it was “a question that involves the president of the United States, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of State.”
Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who left the island three years before Fidel Castro came into power, has been the administration’s point person on Cuba’s future.
His video message came on Cuban Independence Day, which marks the establishment of the Republic of Cuba in 1902 after the end of the Spanish-American War and US occupation.
The White House also released a message from President Trump marking the holiday, likening it to July 4th in the US.
“Like the American patriots who cast off tyrannical rule 250 years ago, Cuba’s founding generation rose against the Spanish Empire’s subjugation to claim the same birthright our citizens enjoy today: the right of a free people to govern themselves,” the message read.
“The regime in Havana today is the direct betrayal of the nation their founding patriots bled and died for,” Trump continued. “As President, I am taking decisive action on behalf of this long-suffering corner of our hemisphere.”
Rubio’s message, however, focused on current living conditions on the island.
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“The real reason you don’t have electricity, fuel, or food is because those who control your country have plundered billions of dollars, but nothing has been used to help the people,” he said elsewhere in the five-minute video.
The Cuban Embassy in Washington dismissed Rubio as a liar.
“The reason the US Secretary of State lies so repeatedly and unscrupulously when referring to Cuba and trying to justify the aggression to which he subjects the Cuban people is not ignorance or incompetence,” the Embassy wrote on its X account.
“He knows full well that there is no excuse for such cruel and ruthless aggression.”
Food and fuel are scarce on the island, while electricity is available for only two hours a day in many places.
The Havana government blames the problems on the US embargo. But the island is no longer receiving free fuel from Venezuela after the Trump administration ousted that country’s left-wing leader, Nicolás Maduro, this past January.
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