The United States is not weighing imminent military action against Cuba, even as President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned that “Cuba is next” and suggested that American warships could later turn toward the island, U.S. officials told The Associated Press.
The officials also said the Trump administration has been holding preliminary discussions with Cuban authorities and offered a package that they said would include tens of millions of dollars for humanitarian aid, two years of free Starlink internet access for all Cubans, as well as agricultural assistance and infrastructure support. They told AP they are not optimistic the Cuban government will accept the offer, but they said Havana has not outright refused it.
In the officials’ account, the offer is tied to conditions that Cuba has long resisted, and the discussions are continuing even after the Trump administration imposed new sanctions on Havana on Thursday. The largest of the new sanctions, the officials said, targets GAESA—Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.—a business conglomerate run by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks, said there was still time for Cuba to accept the proposal. They also cautioned that Trump could change his approach at any time and that military options remained “on the table,” even as they described the administration’s immediate goal as changing policy rather than pursuing regime change.
The new sanctions were announced after Trump signed an executive order the prior week expanding the administration’s authority to impose penalties on Cuba, AP reported. Shortly after signing the order, Trump gave a speech in which he referenced Cuba’s problems and raised the possibility of a military show of force, saying an aircraft carrier could “come in, stop about 100 yards offshore, and they’ll say: ‘Thank you very much. We give up.’”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has taken a hard line against Cuba’s leadership and has repeatedly criticized the country’s economic model, has argued that those in power “can’t fix it.” During a Tuesday appearance with reporters at the White House, Rubio said the problem is not only that Cuba is communist, but that its leadership is “incompetent communists,” adding, “The only thing worse than a communist is an incompetent one.”
Rubio’s schedule has included travel to Rome and Vatican City, where he met Pope Leo XIV on Thursday as part of efforts that include discussing Cuba. In AP’s report, U.S. officials said that, while talks remain open, the offer depends on steps Cuba has not indicated it will take.
One U.S. official said it was still an open question whether Cuba’s leadership will agree to conditions that include releasing political prisoners, ending political and religious repression, and allowing American private sector investment. That official also said the United States sees a national security threat in what the official described as growing influence on the island by China and Russia, including intelligence and logistics cooperation.
Cuban officials, however, said internal governance was not negotiable. Cuban Ambassador to the United Nations Ernesto Soberón Guzmán told reporters last week that “Negotiations on issues like regime change or removing the president are out of the question,” and added, “No internal affairs of Cuba are on the table.”
Cuba’s objections to the recent sanctions were also voiced by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez. AP reported that Rodríguez called the measures “collective punishment” and denounced the U.S. government’s “genocidal intent against Cuba,” writing on X that the actions rely on an assumption that the United States can impose its will while threatening foreign citizens and businesses with “illegitimate coercion.”
AP also reported that contacts between the Trump administration and Cuba have increased, including a meeting earlier this year in St. Kitts and Nevis between Rubio and Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, described by AP as a figure believed to carry significant influence in Havana as the grandson of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro. More recently, AP said, two senior State Department officials—Jeremy Lewin, in charge of foreign assistance, and Michael Kozak, the top diplomat for Latin America—led a delegation to Havana that met with Rodríguez Castro on April 10.
The officials AP described as leading the Havana trip had not previously been reported, and the delegation’s flight marked, AP reported, the first U.S. government flight to land in Cuba outside the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay since 2016. AP said one U.S. official familiar with that meeting described it as “professional and cordial,” but told AP it did not produce definitive results, leaving the U.S. delegation skeptical that Cuban leadership would consider even modest reforms.
Cuba has argued that the U.S. embargo—and more recently the Trump administration’s energy blockade—drive hardships on the island. AP reported that Cuba has said its crises deepened after the U.S. in January removed Nicolás Maduro as Venezuela’s leader, depriving Cuba of what Cuba described as a main source of energy. Cuban officials have also denounced U.S. rejection of their complaints, with Soberón Guzmán telling AP in a Thursday statement that it was a “blatant insult” to human intelligence for Rubio to travel “4,500 miles to meet with the Pope” to request good offices while denying that a blockade exists.