Rubio says Cuba has ‘already fallen’: ‘It is a failed state’

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that Cuba has “already fallen” and is a “failed state” as tensions rise between the U.S. and island nation.

“Well, the truth is Cuba has already fallen,” Rubio told Fox News’s Sean Hannity. “It does not have a functional economy, and it is governed by people who continue to preach about some revolution that has been dead for 20 years. It’s never worked.”

He added that Cuba’s problem “is, basically right now, it is a failed state in every sense of the word.”

“Now they may have a government that’s capable of jailing and killing people, they have a regime capable and has jailed and killed people, but it’s not a functional government and it’s not a functional country,” the secretary of State continued. “It just simply isn’t. And in addition to that, it is one that’s fueled by corruption and theft.”

Rubio also cited the diaspora of Cuban nationals since 2021 as another reason the country has “failed.” He added that the U.S. hopes some of the island’s officials “open their eyes” to reshape the government internally and eventually bring “economic freedom” and “political freedom first.”

“That will require a period of transition,” he told the host. “Unfortunately, the people that continue to chant revolutionary slogans –– too many of them still believe that they can wait out this administration and make no changes and do nothing. They are wrong and they will learn the lesson the hard way if they don’t correct.”

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla blasted Rubio for repeating what he called “a specific list of lies with which he intends to justify the collective punishment against the Cuban people, which was rejected in recent days by dozens of delegation heads at the [United Nations].”

“He is the exponent of an aggressive policy that is repudiated and isolated, which is only sustained on the basis of force and intimidation, not truth or reasons,” Rodríguez wrote on the social platform X in a post translated from Spanish.

Rubio’s calls for change follow President Trump’s address to world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly last week, stating that the U.S. seeks “fundamental change” from the island and vowing that “freedom will be coming to Cuba.”

“It’s an absolutely failed state. It’s failing like never before, and it will fall,” Trump said, prompting the Cuban delegation to walk out of the chamber.

Cuban officials at the U.N. General Assembly clapped back at the president’s claims, pointing to the U.S.-imposed fuel blockade that has choked off the island’s oil supply and crippled the country’s energy grid, as well as increased sanctions.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel last week slammed the U.N. for allowing Trump to threaten his country and for giving him a platform.

“The executioners of Gaza, Iran, Cuba cannot continue threatening, bombing, and plundering, and boasting about their crimes before the international community,” Díaz-Canel wrote on X on Saturday.

He added, “When a genocide is normalized, doors are opened to others. This is how fascism reemerges.”