Rubio on Cuba: ‘They have to get new people in charge’

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday said Cuba needs to change its political leaders after reports this week that the Trump administration is seeking to push President Miguel Díaz-Canel from power. Rubio did not rule out relaxing the U.S.’s long-standing embargo on Cuba in exchange for political reform. “Suffice it to say that the embargo is tied to political change on the island. The law is codified, but the bottom line is, their economy doesn’t work. It’s a non-functional economy,” Rubio said, noting that Cuba has long relied on subsidies from the Soviet Union and then Venezuela. “They don’t get subsidies anymore, so they’re in a lot of trouble, and the people in charge, they don’t know how to fix it, so they have to get new people in charge,” he added. Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, Cuba’s deputy prime minister, told NBC News on Monday the country would move to allow foreign investment in the economy, a step toward opening up one of the world’s most rigid state-run economies. Rubio, on Tuesday, said that wasn’t far enough. “Cuba has an economy that doesn’t work in a political and governmental system that can’t fix it. So they have to change dramatically. What they announced yesterday is not dramatic enough. It’s not going to fix it. So they’ve got some big decisions to make over there,” he said. Trump spoke briefly about Cuba before handing the floor to Rubio, Tuesday saying the U.S. was focused on Iran but would “be doing something with Cuba very soon.” Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump said Cuba was badly weakened, giving him a free hand in U.S. actions toward the country. “Whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it,” he said. “You want to know the truth, they’re a very weakened nation now.” The island experienced sweeping blackouts on Monday as its energy system faces a breaking point three months into an effective U.S. blockade on crucial energy imports. Díaz-Canel, who became president in 2019, for the first time acknowledged high-level talks with the U.S. last week, telling a Communist Party meeting that negotiators were seeking to “identify the bilateral problems that require solutions based on their severity and impact, and second, to find solutions to these identified problems,” according to The Miami Herald. Rubio has also reportedly been in talks with Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, the grandson of, Raul Castro, who is still seen as the de facto leader of the country. The New York Times report that the U.S. is pushing for Díaz-Canel’s ouster has raised questions about whether Trump would be willing to keep the Castro regime in place, a move that would enrage many in the Cuban-American community who want to see regime change. Rubio was a leading critic of former President Obama’s normalization moves with Cuba, through a policy that sought gradual economic reforms.