President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States is engaged in high-level discussions with Cuba and suggested the possibility of what he described as a “friendly takeover” of the communist run island.
Speaking to reporters outside the White House before departing for Texas, Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio was leading conversations with Cuban officials, The Associated Press reported.
“The Cuban government is talking with us,” Trump said. “They have no money. They have nothing right now. But they’re talking to us, and maybe we’ll have a friendly takeover of Cuba.”
He repeated the phrase moments later. “We could very well end up having a friendly takeover of Cuba,” the president said.
Trump did not clarify what he meant by “friendly takeover,” and the White House did not respond Friday to requests for additional details.
The president described Cuba’s current condition in stark terms.
“Cuba is, to put it mildly, a failed nation,” Trump said. “They want our help.”
His comments came two days after Cuba’s government reported that a Florida-registered speedboat carrying 10 armed Cubans from the United States opened fire on soldiers off the island’s north coast.
According to Havana, four of the armed Cubans were killed, and six were injured in return fire. One Cuban official was also wounded during the confrontation.
Cuban authorities confirmed earlier this week that they were communicating with U.S. officials following the shooting. Rubio has said the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Coast Guard are investigating the incident.
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Cuba has been central to Trump’s foreign policy rhetoric in recent weeks, particularly after U.S. forces ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, a longtime ally of Havana.
Following that operation, Trump suggested military action against Cuba might not be necessary, arguing that the island’s struggling economy could collapse without oil shipments from Venezuela.
“We’ve had a lot of years of dealing with Cuba. I’ve been hearing about Cuba since I’m a little boy. But they’re in big trouble,” Trump said Friday.
He also referenced the Cuban exile community in the United States, many of whom fled the island decades ago.
“There could be something coming that I think is very positive for the people that were expelled, or worse, from Cuba and live here,” he said.
The United States has maintained a strict trade embargo on Cuba since 1962, a year after the failed CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion.
In late January, Trump signed an executive order pledging to impose tariffs on countries that provide oil to Cuba, a move that could further strain the island’s fragile energy infrastructure.
U.S. officials have since indicated that Venezuelan oil may still be sold to Cuban interests in limited circumstances.
Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, addressed the situation in a post on X that was later deleted.
“The US maintains its fuel embargo against Cuba in full force, and its impact as a form of collective punishment is unwavering,” he wrote.
“Nothing announced in recent days changes this reality,” he added. “The possibility of conditional sales to the private sector already existed and does not alleviate the impact on the Cuban population.”
Meanwhile, more than 40 U.S. civil society organizations sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to “press the Trump administration to reverse its aggressive policy towards Cuba.”
The letter warned that efforts to further restrict oil shipments could spark a humanitarian crisis on the island.
“Policies that deliberately impose hunger and mass hardship on millions of civilians constitute a form of collective punishment, and as such are a grave violation of international humanitarian law,” the letter states.
