The Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned on Monday that Cuba represents a qualitatively different national security threat than any conflict in the Middle East or Asia, precisely because of its geographical proximity to U.S. territory, in an interview with Fox News recorded on Sunday at the Department of State.
"Cuba is different from anything in the Middle East or anything that happens in Asia. It is literally 90 miles from Key West, just over a hundred miles from Mar-a-Lago. It is very close, and that matters because it is within our hemisphere. It's the closest you can get. That's why we care; that's why it matters," said Rubio to journalist Trey Yingst.
The head of U.S. diplomacy defined Cuba as two simultaneous things: a failed state without a real economy, where its people "live in terrible misery and also lack political freedoms," and a host nation for strategic adversaries.
Chinese, Russians, and others routinely use Cuba for their purposes just 90 miles from our shores, he noted.
This geopolitical concern has a concrete basis. The Center for Strategic and International Studies has identified at least 12 Chinese signals intelligence facilities in Cuba —in Bejucal, El Salao, Calabazar, and El Wajay— with confirmed expansions in 2024 and 2025. The site in El Salao, located in Santiago de Cuba, is just 70 miles from the Guantanamo Naval Base.
In February 2026, RC-135V Rivet Joint spy planes from the Air Force flew over the entire Cuban coast to monitor those foreign surveillance systems installed on the island.
Rubio was unequivocal in describing the only two possible scenarios for Cuba: total collapse or improvement through serious economic reforms.
Regarding the first, he warned that "a humanitarian collapse 90 miles from our shores in a country of 11 or 12 million people is not good for the United States."
Regarding the second point, he closed the door on the current regime: the economic reforms are impossible with the current rulers, whom he deemed "economically incompetent" and accused of being solely concerned with control.
"They have rolled out the welcome mat for America's adversaries to operate in Cuban territory against national interests with impunity," said Rubio, before issuing a direct warning to Havana.
“We will not allow any foreign military, intelligence, or security apparatus to operate with impunity 90 miles from the shores of the U.S.” That will not happen under President Trump,” warned the head of U.S. diplomacy.
The statements are part of a maximum pressure policy that the Trump administration intensified since January.
On January 29, 2026, Trump signed an executive order declaring Cuba a threat to national security and imposing tariffs on countries that supply it with oil. By March, the administration had imposed more than 240 sanctions against the island.
At the end of March, Rubio expressed his hope that Cuba would fall soon and anticipated upcoming changes in Washington's policy. In other statements, he was equally straightforward: “the people in charge need to be changed,” he asserted, linking economic reforms to a change in the political system.
The economic backdrop supports the diagnosis: Cuba's GDP fell by more than 11% between 2019 and 2024, the population decreased from 11 to 8.5 million inhabitants between 2022 and 2024 due to mass exodus, and Prisoners Defenders reported a historical high of 1,250 political prisoners at the end of March 2026.
"The reason why the economy of Cuba has been collapsing for a long time is that Marxism, in general, does not work, and it really does not work when the people trying to practice it are also incompetent and know nothing about economics. They only care about control," Rubio concluded.
Filed under: