The U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, stated this Wednesday that Cuba has all the necessary resources to be a prosperous country and that its poverty cannot be explained by a lack of natural wealth, but rather by the system that governs it.
The statements were made in an exclusive interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News, in which he detailed three pillars of the island's economic potential: minerals, tourism, and agriculture.
"They have significant mineral deposits in Cuba, some of the best rare earth minerals in the world. They have an incredible opportunity for tourism and very rich farmland. Cuba should not be a poor country. Its people should not be suffering from hunger," stated Rubio.
The Secretary of State emphasized that the island's economic failure is exclusively political, not geographic or human, and illustrated this with a compelling argument.
"Cubans leave Cuba, go to other countries, and become successful. The only place in the world where Cubans seem unable to thrive and succeed is in Cuba."
Rubio also pointed out that in the event of a real opening, Cuba would have an additional advantage: "A huge community of Cuban-American expatriates who would return to invest," along with global interest from foreign investors.
The words of the Secretary of State align with concrete data regarding the island's resources. Cuba has the fifth largest nickel reserves in the world, estimated at 5.5 million metric tons, which account for 6% of the known global reserves, according to the United States Geological Survey.
Production is concentrated in the Moa region in the eastern part of the country. Additionally, about 30% of Cuban territory is arable land, with a tradition in sugar, tobacco, and citrus.
This vision of Cuba's potential is not new in Rubio's discourse. On April 27, he warned that Cuba has only two possible futures: "total collapse" or "substantial and serious economic reforms," but he insisted that neither is possible with the current regime in power.
On March 28, he had been even more straightforward in demanding a total change in the Cuban political and economic system, stating that it is necessary to "change the people in charge, the system that governs the country, and the economic model."
On April 1, he summed up his diagnosis in one sentence: "There is literally no economy in Cuba" and "you can't fix its economy without changing its system of government."
The Cuban regime announced in April new rules to allow emigrants to invest in small and medium enterprises and in the banking sector of the island, a measure received with widespread skepticism by the diaspora and the exile community.
On May 5, Rubio had already issued a stern warning stating that "things are going to change" in Cuba, which analysts interpreted as a sign that the Trump administration maintains maximum pressure on Havana and does not foresee any normalization without a structural change in the system.
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