The U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, sent a direct message to the Cuban people on the island's Independence Day this Tuesday and proposed a “new relationship” between Washington and Cuba, while making it clear that any rapprochement must occur without the continuity of the current communist regime.
The message, fully disseminated in Spanish, represents one of the harshest statements from the Donald Trump administration against Havana since the onset of the new U.S. offensive against the Cuban regime. Rubio accused the communist leadership of corruption, economic looting, and of using the military conglomerate GAESA as the main tool for political and financial control over the island.
“President Trump offers a new relationship between the United States and a new Cuba,” Rubio stated during the video released on May 20, a date that commemorates the establishment of the Republic of Cuba in 1902 and was removed from the official calendar after the Castro revolution in 1959.
Donald Trump alongside Marco Rubio
A large part of the speech focused on denouncing the role of GAESA, the business conglomerate historically controlled by the Cuban Armed Forces and founded by Raúl Castro. According to Rubio, the group controls about 70% of the Cuban economy through hotels, banks, commerce, construction, and the management of remittances coming from the United States.
The Secretary of State asserted that the energy crisis, food shortages, and massive blackouts that Cuba is experiencing are not a direct consequence of U.S. sanctions but rather the result of the “looting” carried out by the ruling elite for decades. “The real reason you have no electricity, fuel, or food is that those who control your country have looted billions of dollars,” Rubio maintained.
Citizens of Havana during a general blackout
Additionally, the Trump administration offered a humanitarian aid package of $100 million in food and medicine, although it clarified that the assistance would only be distributed through independent organizations and not through structures controlled by the Cuban regime.
The statements come at a time of maximum U.S. pressure on Havana. In recent days, Washington expanded sanctions against Cuban officials and took legal action against Raúl Castro for the downing of Brothers to the Rescue planes in 1996.
