The United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, appeared this Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to defend the budget of the Department of State for the fiscal year 2027 and provided a strong diagnosis regarding Cuba: the country cannot reform itself while the same people remain in charge.
" I really don't believe this system is capable of reforming itself unless new people take control," Rubio stated before the senators, in what marks a significant hardening of his stance compared to previous weeks.
The Secretary of State focused his analysis on GAESA (Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.), the business conglomerate of the Cuban Armed Forces, which he described as the true power behind the island.
"Cuba is not actually controlled by the government. Cuba is controlled by a military holding company called GAESA, and GAESA owns practically everything in the country. It controls the tourism sector, controls mining, controls gas stations; it owns it all. Approximately 70% of Cuba's GDP is under the control of this military company," he stated.
Rubio specified that GAESA accumulates between 14,000 and 17,000 million dollars in assets, with not a single cent of that money reaching the Cuban public treasury.
"There are people literally starving. There are people literally suffering the consequences of an electrical grid that hasn't been maintained in ten years. However, this military holding company is sitting on all those assets," she denounced.
The secretary described Cuba as a failed state that poses a direct threat to the United States and emphasized that the island needs "systemic and serious reforms," but dismissed the current leadership as incapable of carrying them out.
This position contrasts with the one Rubio maintained just on May 27 during a cabinet meeting at the White House, when he kept the door open for dialogue: "We will be talking to them, we will be working on it. We want something good for the Cuban people."
In that same session, Rubio had already described the regime as "incompetent communists" and pointed out GAESA as the main structural problem of the island.
During the hearing this Tuesday, Rubio also accused Cuba of sponsoring terrorism and of having supported nearly all violent leftist groups in the Western Hemisphere, explicitly mentioning the ELN and the FARC.
Additionally, he warned about the presence on the island of spy facilities operated on behalf of China and Russia, capable of intercepting military and civilian communications from the southeastern United States.
The statements come at a time of intense pressure on Havana: since January 2026, the Trump administration has imposed more than 240 sanctions against the Cuban regime, including direct measures against GAESA and its president, Brigadier General Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera.
The United States has also intercepted at least seven tankers in international waters, which has reduced Cuba's fuel imports by between 80% and 90%, worsening an energy crisis that in 2026 has left much of the territory experiencing blackouts of up to 24 hours a day.
The deadline for foreign companies to cease their operations with GAESA under the threat of secondary sanctions expires next Friday, June 5, which adds significant urgency to the diplomatic context surrounding the hearing that took place this Tuesday.
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