The U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, launched a harsh criticism against the power elite in Cuba by stating that its leaders "would rather be in charge of a dying country than allow it to thrive."
Rubio, who is attending the Munich Security Conference, criticized the inability of those in control of the country to improve the daily lives of their people without relinquishing total control over strategic sectors.
"The fundamental problem that Cuba has is that it lacks an economy, and the people in charge of this country who control it do not know how to improve the daily lives of their people without yielding power over the sectors they control," he declared to Alerta News 24.
The official emphasized that, when it comes to opportunities to open up the economy or implement reforms, the regime has shown no willingness to carry them out.
He insisted that the Cuban political and economic system is broken and that the ruling elites are unwilling to adopt the necessary reforms to revitalize the economy or expand civil liberties, which has condemned the nation to decades of stagnation.
He emphasized that the Cuban authorities "want to control everything" and cling to power even in the face of a profound economic and social collapse.
"They don't know how to get out of this. And to the extent that opportunities have been offered to them to do so, they don't seem able to understand or accept them in any way," he emphasized.
The Secretary of State emphasized that these elites prefer "to be in charge of a dying country rather than allowing it to prosper," an honest statement that reflects the U.S. administration's stance toward the government of Havana.
Rubio has been a consistent voice within the Trump administration advocating for increased diplomatic and economic pressure on Cuba.
In recent months, he has described the Cuban administration as a "disastrous regime" that has devastated the country and is responsible for the prolonged crisis of shortages, massive emigration, and social deterioration that the Island faces.
In other statements, he has pointed out that the governments of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are responsible for serious migration crises in the hemisphere because "they are countries whose systems do not work," and he has accused these autocracies of creating conditions that force thousands of citizens to leave their homes in search of better opportunities abroad.
Rubio's stance on Cuba has been consistently one of confrontation and rejection of the idea of negotiating with the current leadership without prior significant changes in its political direction.
In a context where the crisis on the Island has deepened—with a severe shortage of fuel, prolonged blackouts, and difficulties in the functioning of basic services—his statements aim to emphasize, from Washington, the need for Cuba to undertake a profound transformation that entails allowing prosperity and freedom to grow without absolute state control.
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