During a meeting of the Shield of the Americas held in New York, President Donald Trump joked about the possibility of taking Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Cuba aboard "one of those big and beautiful aircraft carriers," leaving him there and allowing him to "take care of the rest."
"One day, in the near future, we will leave him in the middle of Cuba, just on the way back from Iran. We will have one of those large and beautiful aircraft carriers take him, drop him off there, and he will take care of the rest. He always does," Trump stated during the meeting, according to a video released by the State Department.
The joke came after the president mentioned the serious crisis facing the island and directed attention towards Rubio and his Cuban roots.
"What can I say about Cuba? Last night there was another blackout. They don't have enough electricity even for the lights. I don't know what's happening with Cuba, but things don't look good," he said.
He then recalled that the parents of the Secretary of State were born in Cuba.
"Marco's parents were born in Cuba. It's a great story, and he wants to understand it and make sense of it all," Trump noted before launching the aircraft carrier idea.
The official concluded the passage by praising Rubio: "His parents were born there, and now look at the position he holds: Secretary of State, doing a fantastic job."
Trump speaks again about an aircraft carrier off the coast of Cuba
Although this time it was made as a joke about Rubio, the reference has a direct precedent.
In May, Trump threatened to send the USS Abraham Lincoln off the coast of Cuba once the U.S. military operations against Iran were concluded.
"Upon our return from Iran, we will send one of our aircraft carriers, perhaps the Abraham Lincoln, and have it approach, stopping a hundred meters off the shore, and they will respond: thank you very much, we surrender," he said then.
Days later, he revisited the possibility during an interview and asserted that the aircraft carrier could stop "a couple of hundred yards" from Cuba.
The repetition this Tuesday of the phrase "back from Iran" directly connects both comments, although this time Trump did not announce a military operation and presented the scenario in a humorous tone.
Rubio, at the center of the contacts with Havana
The statements take on another dimension because just hours earlier, during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Trump publicly asserted that Rubio is involved in talks with Cuba.
«Marco Rubio is handling a negotiation. He is deeply involved in negotiations with Cuba. We'll see what happens,» Trump stated during the plenary.
The version from Havana has been more nuanced. At the beginning of September, Chancellor Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla acknowledged that "there have been conversations with the State Department" and that communication channels are being maintained, although he asserted that no progress has been made.
Cuba, once again at the center of Trump's discourse
The joke was made on the same day that Trump described Cuba as a “completely failed state” before the UN and claimed that the island's political system would "fall." The Cuban delegation left the room during that part of the speech.
The references to the blackouts were not coincidental. Cuba experienced another national collapse of the electrical system last Friday, which left millions of people without service and added to a series of widespread network failures throughout 2026.
This Tuesday, the Electric Union forecasted a shortfall of 2,050 MW during peak hours, with only 1,180 MW available against an estimated demand of 3,200 MW.
Rubio also recently spoke about that crisis. At the beginning of September, he stated that the blackouts in Cuba predate the current measures from Washington and attributed part of the issue to the deterioration of the electrical infrastructure and the lack of investment.
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