Rubio Urges Cubans Seeking Change to Partner With the CIA as Trump Jokes About Warships

Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly urged Cubans who want political change to work with the Central Intelligence Agency on Friday, the latest step in the Trump administration's campaign to remove Cuba's communist government from power.

"To those who seek to create positive change in Cuba - now is the time," Rubio wrote on X, pointing to "a discrete partnership with the CIA" as the way to pursue it. The CIA reposted Rubio's message shortly afterward, along with a similar appeal in Spanish and a video showing the steps for contacting the agency.

Later Friday, at a campaign rally in South Florida, President Trump went further. "We'll take care of Cuba on our way back from Iran," he said, referring to U.S. Navy warships deployed near the Strait of Hormuz. He said "those beautiful ships will pass Cuba," that one would "stop about 50 yards off the coast," and that the United States would then "send Marco Rubio in to finish up the deal."

Cuba's foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, answered on X the same day. "We reject any threats stemming from U.S. ambitions toward Cuba," he wrote. He added that Cuba's shores, though lined with beautiful beaches, are rugged and inhospitable to anyone who arrives with hostile intentions and a desire for domination.

The messages come as the island's economy is under heavy strain. The U.S. embargo and expanded sanctions have driven up the prices of basic goods and cut access to medical care. Cubans have reported waiting hours in bread lines and lining up to see doctors. Last week, Washington announced sanctions on Cuba's state-run Banco Internacional de Comercio S.A., known as BICSA, saying the bank has ties to Iran.

A public call from the nation's top diplomat for citizens of another country to cooperate with its spy agency is unusual. Intelligence services normally recruit quietly, and the CIA has long avoided advertising its methods for contact. Rubio's use of the word "discrete," and the agency's decision to post instructions, signal that the administration wants the message to be heard widely inside Cuba as well as in Washington and Havana.

The pressure on Cuba has been building for months. Florida recently obtained a no-bond arrest warrant for former Cuban leader Raúl Castro over the 1996 shootdown of two civilian planes, and Cubans have been getting only a few hours of electricity a day as the embargo squeezes fuel and medicine. The administration has said little about what it wants to see happen next, and neither the State Department nor the CIA has detailed what a partnership with Cubans would involve.