The Secretary of State Marco Rubio took the podium at the White House yesterday and delivered a strong message regarding Cuba, labeling the regime as a "failed state" governed by "incompetent communists" and warning that Washington would take action in response to what he described as an unacceptable situation 90 miles from U.S. shores.
Rubio replaced press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is on maternity leave, and took the opportunity during the press conference to dismantle the argument of the alleged oil blockade that the Cuban regime uses to justify its energy crisis.
"There is no oil blockade against Cuba as such," Rubio asserted, explaining the actual mechanics: Cuba received free oil from Venezuela, resold 60% of that crude for cash, and that money did not benefit the population.
The Secretary of State pointed out that the only real "blockade" was Venezuela's decision to stop giving away oil, something that, he said, no one does nowadays, "much less to a failed regime."
Regarding the Cuban government's inability to resolve the crisis, Rubio was striking: "The only thing worse than a communist is an incompetent communist. And that's what we have: incompetent communists running that country. They don't know how to fix it. They really don't know."
This phrase, which Rubio had already used in March when rejecting any economic reform agreements with Havana, has become one of the focal points of the Trump administration's discourse about the island.
Although he did not announce specific measures for that day, Rubio made it clear that inaction is not an option: "We have, 90 miles from our shores, a failed state that is also a favorable territory for some of our adversaries. It is an unacceptable situation, and we will address it."
The secretary also revealed that the United States provided six million dollars in humanitarian aid to Cuba through the Catholic Church, but that the regime is blocking further distribution: "We would like to do more, but the Cuban regime has to allow us to."
Rubio's statements come at a time of heightened pressure from Washington on Havana. On May 1st, Trump signed a new executive order that expands sanctions against the regime in the energy, defense, mining, and finance sectors, with secondary sanctions on foreign banks that do business with sanctioned Cuban entities.
On that same day, Trump stated at an event in Florida that the United States would "take Cuba almost immediately" after completing Operation Epic Fury against Iran, and threatened again to deploy the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier off the coast of the island.
Yesterday, Trump reiterated that he has "the obligation to do something for Cuba" after having obtained 94% of the Cuban vote in the elections.
The regime responds with a confrontational rhetoric. Last Sunday, Díaz-Canel warned of "the imminence of a military aggression" from the United States, invoked the doctrine of the "War of All the People," and stated that "every Cuban man and woman has a rifle."
The backdrop is a collapsing economy: Cuba ranks last among 27 economies in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a projected contraction of 7.2% for 2026 and power outages lasting up to 25 hours a day in some provinces.
Rubio did not set deadlines or detail the planned actions, but his message was unmistakable: "Things are going to change."
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