President Donald Trump used a campaign rally in Fort Myers, Florida, on Friday to put Cuba’s communist government on notice, saying U.S. warships coming home from the Iran war could make a stop off the island’s coast on the way back.
The remark came in response to a shouted question from the crowd about Cuba, as Trump campaigned for Rep. Byron Donalds, the Republican nominee for Florida governor, and other GOP candidates less than two weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
“They’ll raise up their hands”
“We’ll do a little stopover,” Trump said, according to the Associated Press. “Actually, what we’re going to do with Cuba is, we’re going to come back from Iran. Those beautiful ships will pass Cuba. We’ll have one of them stop about 50 yards off the coast. They’ll raise up their hands. And then we’re going to send (Secretary of State) Marco Rubio in to finish up the deal.”
Reuters reported that Trump vowed to address his concerns about Cuba once the Iran war is settled. Trump won 68% of the Cuban American vote in Florida in the 2024 election, and Cuban Americans remain a powerful voting bloc in the state.
Rubio: “Now is the time”
Moments after Trump spoke, Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a longtime hard-liner on Havana’s socialist leadership, posted on social media that “now is the time” for action on Cuba. Addressing his message “to those who seek to create positive change,” Rubio urged them “to seize this opportunity to create the change you desire through a discrete partnership with the CIA,” the AP reported.
In a Sept. 29 interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Rubio said, “The truth is Cuba has already fallen. It doesn’t have a functional economy and it’s governed by people who continue to preach about some revolution that has been dead for 20 years that’s never worked.” He added, “We’re never going to allow Cuba to become a base of operation against American interests or pose a threat to our national security.”
A familiar warning
Trump first floated the idea of stopping by Cuba earlier this year but had not mentioned it in recent months. In May, he and Rubio raised the prospect of U.S. military intervention after the administration announced criminal charges against the island’s former leader, Raúl Castro. At the time, Trump said previous presidents had considered intervening in Cuba for decades but that “it looks like I’ll be the one that does it.”
Trump has also said he expects the two countries “will make a deal,” adding, “I don’t think we’ll need the military. Cuba is failing very badly.” Rubio and other top aides have met with Cuban officials in recent months, but the U.S. side came away unimpressed, leading to more sanctions on the Cuban government.
Cuba has been mired in an economic and energy crisis since 2020, with blackouts, food shortages and inflation. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans have left the island, many of them for the United States.
Sources: Associated Press, Reuters, Fox News.