The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, reacted sarcastically this Saturday to the public call from the CIA and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for Cuban citizens to covertly collaborate with the U.S. intelligence agency.
Now the U.S. is resorting to public recruitments for the CIA. There must be a lot of desperation or poverty among the agency's ranks when it has to promote its offerings like toothpaste, wrote the diplomat on his verified account on X.
The trigger was a message posted on Friday by Rubio on his official account, aimed at those seeking to "create a positive change in Cuba", in which he urged to seize "the moment" to establish a "discreet partnership with the CIA".
Hours later, the official CIA account made a direct appeal in Spanish that was almost identical to Rubio's, accompanied by a nearly two-minute video and an Instagram guide with operational security instructions: use of VPNs with servers outside of Cuba, browsing in incognito mode, creating disposable emails, and deleting history after contact.
Analysts described the coordinated action between the State Department and the CIA as unprecedented in its public nature, marking the first time a Secretary of State has openly called for the recruitment of informants in a foreign country through social media.
Fernández de Cossío did not limit himself to irony in X. In a second post on Facebook, the Deputy Chancellor drew a historical parallel with the Church Committee of the U.S. Senate, which in the 1970s documented CIA operations that included assassination plans, torture, coups, and connections with organized crime.
"The CIA is a state terrorism organization. Its dirty history is well documented and only with what is publicly known," wrote the regime official.
The call comes amid a sustained escalation of U.S. pressure on Cuba throughout 2026.
In August, the New York Times revealed the creation of a secret CIA task force dedicated exclusively to Cuba, elevated to "Priority 1" alongside China, Iran, and Russia, aimed at exploiting divisions within the political elite of the regime.
On October 5th, Rubio had already warned the regime's armed apparatus that those who believed they could endure until the end of the Trump administration “will learn their lesson the hard way.”
On the eve of the CIA's call, President Donald Trump held a rally in Fort Myers, Florida, where he joked about sending military ships 50 yards off the coast of Cuba and announced that he would send Rubio to "seal the deal."
The regime responded in unison. Díaz-Canel denounced on X that the United States "does not give up its ambitions of domination over Cuba," while the foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla warned with a phrase that mixed tourism and threat: “On our coasts, there are beautiful beaches, but also a dog’s tooth”.
From the other side of the spectrum, the Cuban-American congressman Carlos A. Giménez celebrated the initiative with a statement that encapsulates the sentiment in sectors of the Cuban community in Florida: "The regime in Havana must be relegated to the dustbin of history, and I know that day is closer than ever."
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