WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump raised the prospect of U.S. military intervention in Cuba on Thursday, telling reporters that while previous presidents had considered action over the past 50 to 60 years, “it looks like I’ll be the one that does it.” The remark, made during an environmental event in the Oval Office, came as Secretary of State Marco Rubio separately expressed skepticism that diplomatic engagement with the island could succeed and said the Trump administration sees Cuba as a national security threat because of its relationships with U.S. adversaries.
Trump said other presidents had looked at intervening in Cuba for decades. “Other presidents have looked at this for 50, 60 years, doing something,” Trump said. “And, it looks like I’ll be the one that does it. So, I would be happy to do it.”
Rubio told reporters that Cuba has been a national security threat for years because of its ties to U.S. adversaries and that Trump is intent on addressing it. The remark from the nation’s top diplomat, delivered the same day as Trump’s Oval Office threat, underscored the administration’s shift away from diplomatic engagement and toward a posture of military and legal confrontation with Havana.
The threats took on greater weight because they were issued a day after the Justice Department announced criminal charges against former Cuban President Raúl Castro. The indictment accuses Castro of murder and other offenses stemming from the 1996 shootdown of two civilian planes operated by the exile group Brothers to the Rescue, an incident that killed four men. The legal action marks one of the most aggressive U.S. moves against a former Cuban head of state and is part of a broader campaign of pressure that has included tightened sanctions and repeated threats of military force.
The latest threats continue a pattern of escalating rhetoric from the administration. In February, Trump said the U.S. could have “a friendly takeover of Cuba,” and in March his administration called for new Cuban leaders as blackouts deepened the island’s economic crisis. The Justice Department’s decision to bring charges against a former Cuban president represents a sharp break from the long-standing diplomatic taboo against prosecuting sitting or former heads of state, and it comes amid a series of administration moves that have placed U.S.-Cuba relations at their most confrontational point in more than half a century.