President Trump continues to dangle potential military action against Cuba, appearing to be emboldened by his administration’s interventions in Venezuela and Iran.
After the U.S. military captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January, Mr. Trump warned that he had his sights set on Cuba. Standing alongside Mr. Trump at a news conference about the raid on Jan. 3, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the regime should be “concerned.”
Since Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was assassinated in U.S. strikes on Iran in February, Mr. Trump’s rhetoric against Cuba has escalated. On March 16, Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he believed he would have “the honor of taking Cuba.”
“Taking Cuba in some form, yeah,” he said. “Taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it — I think I could do anything I want with it, if you want to know the truth.”
“Cuba’s going to be next,” Mr. Trump told reporters Sunday on Air Force One.
Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, has been more direct about the administration’s possible goals in Cuba, testifying to Congress in January, “we would love to see the regime there change,” saying it would be of “great benefit” to the U.S. Weeks later, Rubio said Cuba has to “change dramatically.”
“I mean Cuba has an economy that doesn’t work and a political and governmental system that can’t fix it,” Rubio said on March 17 in the Oval Office. “The people in charge, they don’t know how to fix it. So, they have to get new people in charge.”
Rubio reiterated the need for economic reform and political reforms on Tuesday, telling Fox News the administration will “have more news on that fairly soon.”
“You cannot fix their economy if you don’t change the system of government,” he said.
For now, experts on the region view the threats of military action in Cuba as bluster, saying it would involve much more effort than in Venezuela because of the political structure. Forcing gradual economic change, along with the resignation of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, through the threat of economic collapse and other sanctions is a more likely scenario, they said.
“I think there are a number of factions within the administration where some would be happy to do a deal with most of the existing Cuban government if it gave greater access to businesses, and particularly to Cuban Americans to come back and invest,” Paul Hare, who served as the British ambassador to Cuba from 2001 to 2004, told CBS News. “The other faction, I think, is insisting on a complete regime change.”