Why Rubio Is Driving the U.S. Pressure Campaign on Cuba

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]The Trump administration has just indicted [music] Raul Castro. Raul is Fidel Castro's 94-year-old brother and probably [music] the most important political figure in Cuba. This is a major development in President [music] Trump's ongoing pressure campaign against the Cuban government and it has echoes [music] of the US indictment of the Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, which was the basis for President Trump sending troops [music] in to snatch him out of the country for trial. Trump officials and experts tell us the main driving force behind all this is Marco Rubio. Let's listen to what he told Fox News while traveling on Air Force One last week.

[00:00:39]>> [music] >> It's my personal opinion, you cannot change the economic trajectory of Cuba as long as the people who are in charge of it now are in charge of it. The dream for Marco Rubio for decades now has been getting rid [music] of the Cuban leadership entirely. His parents came to the United States from Cuba in the 1950s and [music] he started his political career in South Florida where the influence of Cuban exiles is enormous.

[00:01:09]That environment instilled in Rubio a very intense >> [music] >> anti-Castro regime worldview that he has carried with him through his political career, but he's never worked with a president who has been willing to go this far.

[00:01:30]Even if President Trump doesn't feel nearly as emotionally invested in Cuba as Marco Rubio does, President Trump loves to be able to say that he has done things or solved problems that his predecessors weren't able to do. The first step of this pressure campaign really began when the United [music] States captured Maduro.

[00:01:50]Venezuela was one of Cuba's only remaining suppliers of oil and after getting rid of Maduro, President Trump was able to force [music] Venezuela to stop shipping oil to Cuba.

[00:02:02]The island has almost no power right now. Over the past several months, the pressure has really been building. There were new sanctions on Cuban officials and government offices. The CIA director visited Cuba last week and we have seen an increase in military and surveillance activity in the region, including spy planes >> [music] >> flying over the island. We don't know exactly how this is going to play out.

[00:02:25]The Cuban government seems very dug in and [music] is giving few signs that they want to make a deal with President Trump. At the same time, economic conditions in the country are horrendous [music] and there's real human suffering. And that puts increasing pressure on the Cuban government to try [music] to find some way out of this. And if that happens, that gives Marco Rubio the chance to achieve something he's worked towards for his [music] entire political career.