U.S. President Donald Trump told a rally in Fort Myers, Florida, on Friday that the United States would “take care of Cuba on our way back from Iran,” describing a scenario in which one of the U.S. ships returning from Iran would stop off the island’s coast and Secretary of State Marco Rubio would be sent in.
Trump made the remarks on Oct. 23 at Alico Arena at Florida Gulf Coast University, at an event billed as a midterm rally on the Republican event page.
Trump appeared to be responding to someone in the crowd. “Cuba, he wants to know what about Cuba. Give me a break,” Trump said. “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of Cuba on our way back from Iran.”
“We’ll do a little stopover,” he said. “Actually, what we’re going to do with Cuba is we’re going to come back from Iran, those beautiful ships. We’ll 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 Marco Rubio in to finish up the deal,” Trump said. He did not say what such a deal would involve or give a timeline.
The White House’s rapid response account posted the clip on X shortly afterward.
The remarks came nearly nine months after Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 29 declaring a national emergency over Cuba and authorizing tariffs on goods from countries that directly or indirectly supply oil to the island.
Trump predicted last month that the United States and Cuba would reach an agreement and said he did not think military action would be necessary, Reuters reported. Reuters also reported that the administration’s stated goal is a change in Cuba’s government, and that Cuba’s foreign minister told the U.N. General Assembly last month that Havana was open to dialogue.
About an hour after the rally remarks, Rubio wrote in a post on X: “To those who seek to create positive change in Cuba – now is the time.” He urged them to “seize this opportunity to create the change you desire through a discrete partnership with the CIA.” The post did not mention the rally.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez wrote later on Friday, after the rally. “We reject every threat related to US ambitions toward Cuba,” he said in an English-language post. “Our coastline is full of beautiful beaches, but there are also razor-sharp limestone spikes, an inhospitable environment for those who make it to our shores with hostile purposes and lust for domination.”
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel wrote in Spanish in a post on X that evening that the U.S. government “makes clear that it does not renounce its ambitions of domination over Cuba,” adding that Cubans were “determined to defend” their independence. Neither post named Trump.
Trump’s description of ships stopping off Cuba’s coast and people who would “raise up their hands” was a scenario he described at the rally, not an announced plan. Trump did not elaborate on it at the rally, and Cuba’s government rejected what it called threats without referring to Trump by name.