Washington: President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday sharply criticised Cuba’s leadership following a nationwide power collapse, calling the island’s economic system “non-functional” and urging sweeping political change.
Speaking during a meeting with Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin, Trump said the United States was closely watching developments in Cuba and signalled possible action.
“Cuba right now is in very bad shape,” Trump said. “We’ll be doing something with Cuba very soon.”
Rubio, responding to questions on the island’s economic crisis, said the situation reflected deeper structural failure. “Cuba has an economy that doesn’t work and a political and governmental system that they can’t fix,” he said.
“So they have to change dramatically.”
Rubio said recent measures announced by Havana were inadequate to address the crisis. “What they announced yesterday is not dramatic enough. It’s not going to fix it,” he said.
He described the Cuban economy as fundamentally broken. “It’s a nonfunctional economy,” Rubio said, adding that the system had survived for decades on external support. “It’s not even a revolution; that thing they have has survived on subsidies from the Soviet Union and now from Venezuela.”
According to Rubio, that support has largely disappeared, leaving the country in deep trouble. “They don’t get subsidies anymore. So they’re in a lot of trouble,” he said.
He also questioned the leadership’s ability to respond to the crisis. “And the people in charge, they don’t know how to fix it. So they have to get new people in charge,” Rubio said.
On US policy, Rubio declined to say whether Washington would consider easing the trade embargo in exchange for Havana’s cooperation. He said the embargo remains tied to political change on the island.
The comments came as Cuba’s electrical grid collapsed on Monday, leaving large parts of the country without power and underscoring the severity of its ongoing energy crisis.
Later, a senior State Department official echoed the administration’s position, linking the blackout directly to governance failures.
“Widespread blackouts have sadly become common for many years in Cuba—a symptom of the failing regime’s incompetence and inability to provide even the most basic goods and services for its people,” the official said.
The official described the situation as the result of decades of political rule. “This is the tragic result of over sixty years of Communist rule,” the official said.
In a stark assessment, the official said the island had sharply declined. “An island that was once the crown jewel of the Caribbean has plunged into extreme poverty and darkness,” the official said.
The official also pointed to Trump’s position on the future of the Cuban government. “As President Trump has said, what is left of the regime should make a deal and finally let the Cuban people be free and prosperous, with the help of the United States,” the official said.
The administration’s remarks suggest Washington sees the latest blackout as part of a broader economic and political crisis rather than a one-off infrastructure failure.
(IANS)
