The U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, reaffirmed on Wednesday from Manila, Philippines, that Cuba represents a direct national security priority for Washington. He stated to the press that “Cuba matters to us because it is 90 miles from our shores and has a direct impact on our national security.”
Rubio is in the Philippine capital to participate in the ministerial meetings of the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference, scheduled from July 19 to 23. On the sidelines of this agenda, he answered questions from reporters about the Trump administration's policy toward the island.
The head of U.S. diplomacy referred to Cuba as a "failed state" on two occasions during the same intervention, and dismissed the idea that he had set deadlines for regime change: "I have never established any timeline for how the change would occur or when it would happen. I wish it were tomorrow because they deserve it. The people of Cuba deserve a better future.”
Rubio acknowledged that within the administration there was an expectation of seeing economic and political transformations on the island before the end of 2026, but he clarified that he did not predict them. "Global issues are not a miniseries where everything gets resolved in three episodes," he pointed out.
"We are talking about a system that has been in place since 1959," he added.
Regarding the causes of the Cuban collapse, Rubio identified two key factors: an economic model that "does not work anywhere else in the world" and the loss of the free supply of Venezuelan oil, which was cut off after the capture of Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces in January 2026.
The Secretary of State also revealed that the Cuban regime allocated about 60% of the oil it received for free from Venezuela to resell for cash, instead of using it for the country’s electrical grid.
"The biggest problem in Cuba is that its regime is a disaster, its economic model doesn’t work, and those who lead the country don’t know what they are doing," he stated.
"The goal is to have a Cuba where the people can experience prosperity, security, and a better life," Rubio concluded.
"We are willing to do whatever it takes to help them get there, but they have to decide that they want to. Those in charge right now simply do not want to. It's a pity," he added.
Rubio also pointed out that Cuba has lost between 10% and 15% of its population since 2021 due to the poor management of the regime, and that its leaders fear economic prosperity because they know they would lose control over the citizenry.
In parallel, he recalled that the United States began sending over 100 million dollars in humanitarian aid to Cuba, distributed exclusively by non-governmental organizations.
The first shipment had departed from Miami on Tuesday with 700 hygiene kits and 700 food items, coordinated by Catholic Relief Services, Cáritas Cuba, and the Catholic Church, without the involvement of the Cuban government.
The regime has rejected both the aid and the narrative from Washington. Chancellor Bruno Rodríguez referred to it as a "tale," and Carlos Fernández de Cossío described it as a "
The statements from Manila come two days after the Department of State published the report "Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism", a document of about 100 pages that accuses the regime of sponsoring radical leftism in the United States for over six decades and documents 18 signals intelligence facilities on the island, including two Russian ones.
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