Rubio urges Cuban leaders to step down amid U.S. $100 million offer.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Cuba’s leadership must change as Washington renewed an offer on Wednesday of $100 million in aid if the communist‑run island agrees to cooperate.

Cuba has been experiencing severe economic turmoil, highlighted by an energy shortage that left 65 percent of the country without power on Tuesday.

While Cuban officials blame U.S. sanctions, Rubio, a Cuban‑American and outspoken critic of the Fidel Castro‑era government, attributed the problems to the system itself, including corruption within the military.

“It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Air Force One as he travelled with President Donald Trump to China.

“We’ll give them a chance. But I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Rubio added.

“I don’t think we’re going to be able to change the trajectory of Cuba as long as these people are in charge in that regime.”

Trump, who has removed Venezuela’s left‑wing leader from power earlier this year but has seen limited success in the Iran conflict, has suggested that Cuba could be next and that the United States might take control of the island 145 kilometres (90 miles) off Florida.

Rubio said last week, after talks at the Vatican, that Cuba had rejected a U.S. offer of $100 million in assistance, a claim denied by Havana.

The State Department publicly renewed the proposal on Wednesday, a week after new U.S. sanctions targeted key actors in Cuba’s state‑controlled economy and their foreign partners.

“The regime refuses to allow the United States to provide this assistance to the Cuban people, who are in desperate need of assistance due to the failures of Cuba’s corrupt regime,” the State Department said in a statement.

“The decision rests with the Cuban regime to accept our offer of assistance or deny critical (life‑saving) aid and ultimately be accountable to the Cuban people for standing in the way of critical assistance,” it added.

The support would include direct humanitarian assistance and funding for “fast and free” internet access, which would presumably benefit dissidents in the one‑party state that restricts media.

– New protests –

Cuba has seen a series of rare protests as economic hardship grips the island’s 9.6 million residents.

On Wednesday, several dozen people, some banging pots and pans, protested against power outages in the San Miguel del Padron neighbourhood on Havana’s outskirts, a resident told AFP.

Other neighbourhoods saw similar demonstrations by evening, with residents in Playa shouting, “Turn on the lights!”, witnesses reported.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz‑Canel acknowledged the “particularly tense” situation but blamed the United States entirely.

“This dramatic worsening has a single cause: the genocidal energy blockade to which the United States subjects our country, threatening irrational tariffs against any nation that supplies us with fuel,” he wrote Wednesday on X.

Cuba lost the source for about half its fuel needs when U.S. forces seized Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a raid in January, after which his successor complied with U.S. pressure not to aid Cuba.

Since then, only one oil tanker, from Russia, has reached Cuba.

The Trump administration has already provided $6 million in humanitarian aid to Cuba, channeled through the Catholic Church, which has long acted as a mediator between the two countries.

After Rubio’s initial comments on the $100 million offer, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said it was a “lie” that “no one here knows anything about.”

“Will it be a donation, a deception or a dirty deal to curtail our independence? Wouldn’t it be easier to lift the fuel blockade?” Rodríguez wrote on X.

Rubio has reportedly been in contact with segments of the Cuban elite in hopes of sparking change.

AFP

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