The president said that Marco Rubio “is handling it at the highest level,” without specifying what the negotiation with the regime consisted of.
14ymedio, Madrid, February 27, 2026 – U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed this Friday that his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is in talks with the Cuban regime and suggested that his country could carry out a “friendly takeover” of the Island. “The Cuban Government is talking to us. They are in serious trouble. They have no money, they have nothing right now, but they are talking to us. And maybe we’ll have a friendly takeover of Cuba,” the president told the press outside the White House, with the sound of the helicopter waiting for him in the background.
Amid the commotion from reporters trying to continue asking questions, he insisted: “We could very well end up having a friendly takeover of Cuba.” Trump described the Island as, “to put it mildly, a failed nation.”
The president continued: “Since I was a child, I’ve heard things about Cuba and everyone wants to change it, I see that could happen.” Marco Rubio, he asserted, “is handling it at the highest level.” And he emphasized: “They have no money, they have no oil, they have no food, it’s right now a nation in serious trouble and they want our help.”
His words confirmed what the Miami Herald published this Thursday: that advisers to the Secretary of State—sources did not specify whether the Secretary himself—met with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez, alias El Cangrejo, grandson of Raúl Castro, in Basseterre, capital of Saint Kitts and Nevis, where the Caribbean Community (Caricom) summit has been held.
They have no money, they have no oil, they have no food, it is right now a nation in serious trouble and they want our help.
The main topic of the talks was, according to the Miami newspaper, “the possibility of gradually easing U.S. sanctions in exchange for Cuban leaders implementing changes on the Island month by month.”
A Caribbean diplomat confirmed to the Herald that in private meetings with them, on the sidelines of the summit, “Rubio made it clear that talks with the Cuban Government were very advanced and that they did not want to do anything that would prolong the regime,” although, according to another source, no specific agreement had yet been finalized.
Major U.S. media outlets featured on their pages this Friday analyses by various experts who differ in their hypotheses about what a U.S.-driven transition on the Island would look like.
Among them is an article by Michael Crowley, a reporter who often accompanies the Secretary of State on his trips, published in The New York Times, which presents the opinions of several observers of the situation. Most analysts believe that Trump and Rubio favor a gradual opening of the regime toward economic and political freedoms, more in line with the Venezuelan option after the capture of Nicolás Maduro, although one dissenting voice stands out: that of Jason Marczak.
An expert on Latin America at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Marczak believes the Trump Administration may be more willing to assume the risk of a chaotic transition, unlike what occurred in Venezuela. The key, he argues, lies in oil and the Island’s limited relevance.
Compared to the need for stability required to revive Venezuela’s oil industry, Cuba has nothing beyond an isolated economy with barely any goods to export. “Unrest there would have little economic impact beyond its shores,” he maintains.
As for Washington’s other major concern—a wave of migration—it could be mitigated with the same humanitarian aid already being sent in cooperation with the Catholic Church through Caritas, Marczak adds. In his view, the “Delcy option” shows no signs of succeeding: “Most Cubans have never lived under any regime other than the communist one.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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