Rubio Asks Cubans For CIA Ties As Trump Talks Ships Near Havana

Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on Cubans who want political change to move now, posting a message addressed to those who want to build a better country and suggesting they work with the CIA to do it. The appeal landed days before US midterm elections and hours after President Donald Trump revived an idea he first raised months earlier: American warships returning from the Iran conflict pausing off Cuba's shore.

In a Friday rally for candidates in south Florida, Trump answered a shouted question from the crowd and said ships passing Cuba could stage what he called a little stopover, with one vessel stopping about 50 yards off the coast. He described a plan to send Rubio in after the ship signals its presence. "They'll raise up their hands. And then we're going to send Marco Rubio in to finish up the deal," Trump told the crowd.

Rubio's own message, posted to social media and addressed to those who seek to create positive change, pointed to broken promises, corruption and the privileged lives of a few as reasons Cubans should act. He urged them to pursue that change "through a discrete partnership with the CIA." Rubio used the word discrete, which means separate, where he appeared to mean discreet, meaning private. Rubio's parents left Cuba for the United States before the socialist revolution took power.

Cuba's government answered the same day. Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio wrote on X that Washington was "resorting to public recruitment for the CIA." He added: "There must be a great deal of desperation or misery within the agency for it to be forced to sell its services like a tube of toothpaste."

Rubio has not spoken at length about Cuba in public for several weeks. In a September 29 interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, he said "C Cuba has already fallen," describing an economy that does not function and a government preaching a revolution he called dead for 20 years. He said the United States would not allow Cuba to become a base of operations against American interests. He did not mention any CIA operation in that conversation.

Talks between the two countries have produced little. Rubio and other senior aides have met Cuban officials in recent months to explore better relations, but the US side left those meetings unsatisfied and later imposed more sanctions. In his speech to the UN General Assembly last month, Trump said Rubio was "deep into negotiations with Cuba." Days later, Trump told reporters he expected the two countries "will make a deal" and said he did not think the military would be needed. This week, the two governments clashed at the UN as Washington sought votes against the annual resolution condemning the US economic embargo.

Cuba has faced an economic and energy crisis since 2020. Its gross domestic product has shrunk, and its 10 million residents have lived through blackouts, food shortages and inflation. Protests have broken out repeatedly, and hundreds of thousands of Cubans have left the country, many for the United States.