Marco Rubio explained on Tuesday, from the podium of the White House press room, why he posed in front of a prominent map of Cuba during his meeting with Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) in Doral, Florida, in an appearance filled with messages regarding the future of the Cuban regime.
The Secretary of State, who replaced the press secretary Karoline Leavitt today —on maternity leave after giving birth to her second child on April 17— was questioned by a journalist about the image that had circulated hours earlier, in which Rubio appears alongside General Francis L. Donovan, commander of SOUTHCOM, with a large map of Cuba in the background.
The explanation was straightforward: "Cuba is in Southern Command; you know that's the closest part. Our ambassadors were throughout the Western Hemisphere. I met with the general who has just taken over Southern Command, and behind him was a map of Cuba, and I said it would be good if we took a photo in front of that map. Because it's like the closest thing in Southern Command to the United States."
Regarding the content of the meeting, Rubio was deliberately cryptic: "I'm not going to tell you what I discussed with Southern Command, but it had something to do with Cuba."
The photo was taken during the 2026 Conference of Heads of Mission, held from May 5 to 7 at SOUTHCOM headquarters in Doral, where Rubio delivered the opening speech in his dual role as Secretary of State and Acting National Security Advisor — a concentration of power previously held only by Henry Kissinger.
The press conference was not limited to explaining the image. Rubio delivered a strong message about the Cuban regime, which he described as a "failed state" governed by "incompetent communists": "The only thing worse than a communist is an incompetent communist. And that's what we have. They don't know how to fix it. They really don't know."
He also debunked the narrative of the oil blockade that the regime uses to justify the energy crisis: "Cuba used to receive free oil from Venezuela. They were given quite a bit of oil for free. They would take about 60% of that oil and sell it for money. It didn’t even benefit the people."
The Secretary of State framed the situation in Cuba as a national security issue: "We have, 90 miles from our shores, a failed state that is also a favorable territory for some of our adversaries. So it is an unacceptable situation, and we will address it, but not today."
The Cuban-American congressman Carlos Giménez reacted enthusiastically to the photo on social media X: "The regime in Cuba will be relegated to the dustbin of history!"
Rubio's appearance comes at a time of intense pressure on Havana. Since January 2026, the Trump administration has imposed more than 240 sanctions against the regime and intercepted at least seven tankers, reducing Cuba's energy imports by between 80% and 90%, resulting in power outages of up to 25 hours a day in more than 55% of the territory. On May 1, Trump signed a new executive order that expands sanctions in the sectors of energy, defense, mining, and finance.
This Tuesday, Trump also reiterated his threat to deploy the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier off the coast of Cuba once operations in Iran are completed.
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