The U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, dismissed on Wednesday the notion that the Trump administration had set a deadline for achieving regime change in Cuba before the end of 2026, and referred to the Island as a "failed state" twice during the same briefing with the press in Manila, Philippines.
The statements, circulated on X by the State Department, were made on the sidelines of the ministerial meetings of the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference, when journalists asked about internal expectations for economic and political transformations in Cuba before the end of the year.
Rubio responded with visible irritation to the premise: "Who were 'many'? Who said that? Because I work on this matter more than anyone and no one was making that prediction."
The head of U.S. diplomacy rejected any public timeline and appealed to the complexity of geopolitical processes: "Global issues are not like a miniseries that ends in three episodes. They are complex processes."
The official identified the structural causes of the Cuban collapse: a failed economic model that "does not work anywhere else in the world" and the loss of free Venezuelan oil following Nicolás Maduro's capture by U.S. forces in January.
Rubio also revealed a fact that illustrates the regime's logic: the dictatorship allocated about 60% of the crude oil it received for free from Venezuela to resell it for cash, instead of using it to maintain the country's electrical grid.
He pointed out that Cuba has lost between 10% and 15% of its population since 2021 as a direct consequence of the regime's mismanagement, and warned that its rulers “fear economic prosperity because they know that, with economic freedoms, they will lose control over the population.”
Despite dismissing deadlines, he did not hide his moral urgency: "I have never established a timeline for when a change will occur or what that change will be. I wish it were tomorrow, because the Cuban people deserve a better future."
The Secretary of State concluded his speech in Manila with a statement that encapsulates the tension between moral urgency and political realism: "The goal is to have a Cuba where the people can experience prosperity, security, and a better life. Those in charge right now simply do not want that. It’s a shame."
The statements are set against the backdrop of sustained U.S. pressure on Havana.
On Monday, the State Department published the report "Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism," a document of about 100 pages that documents 18 signal intelligence facilities on the island, including two Russian ones.
This week, the first shipment of the humanitarian aid of over 100 million dollars promised by Rubio departed from Miami: 18 tons of food and hygiene supplies channeled through Catholic Relief Services and Cáritas Cuba, without the involvement of the Cuban government.
The regime rejected both the aid and the report. The chancellor Bruno Rodríguez referred to the document as a "slanderous pamphlet," and the humanitarian assistance as a "fable," while Carlos Fernández de Cossío described it as a "dirty political deal".
Washington's pressure strategy includes more than 240 sanctions against the regime, an 80% to 90% reduction in oil flow to the island, and the deployment of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier in the Caribbean since May 20 as part of Operation Southern Spear.
Trump himself has fueled expectations on July 16 with an enigmatic warning: «Many things are going to happen in Cuba in the next perhaps two months, not ruling out an action similar to that carried out in Venezuela.
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