Conflicts
Trump: Rubio and I are negotiating with Cuba
Updated March 7, 2026 – 7:07 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
Cuba is in a serious crisis, the USA is increasing the pressure. Trump expects rapid changes on the island.
According to his own statements, US President Donald Trump is himself involved in negotiations with Cuba. “They want to negotiate and they are negotiating with Marco (Rubio) and me and a few others,” Trump said at a summit with conservative leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean in Doral, Florida. US Secretary of State Rubio also took part in the meeting.
Trump was optimistic that an agreement could be reached with the socialist Caribbean state in a timely manner. “Cuba is in the last moments of its existence. A new life will begin,” he said. The country, which is only around 150 kilometers from Florida, no longer has any money or oil and is a “catastrophe”.
For weeks, Trump has been repeating that Cuba is on the verge of failure and that there are negotiations between the two countries. It is unclear who exactly the US government is in contact with in Cuba. According to unconfirmed US media reports, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, a grandson of former President Raúl Castro, is Washington’s interlocutor on the island.
According to a report in the Miami Herald newspaper, Rubio’s advisers met with the 41-year-old at the end of February on the sidelines of the Caribbean Community summit in St. Kitts and Nevis. Rodríguez Castro is considered the bodyguard and closest confidant of his grandfather Raúl Castro, the most important remaining leading figure from the guerrilla generation.
Relations between Havana and Washington have been strained for decades. Under Trump, Washington is now exerting increased pressure. The US government wants to fundamentally stop the inflow of foreign currency and oil from which the communist government is supposed to benefit. Cuba is currently experiencing one of its worst economic crises since Fidel Castro’s revolution in 1959.
