Rubio Warns Cuba: U.S. Is “Laser-Focused” on Ending the Communist System.

On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a blunt message to Cuba: America is dead set on changing the island’s communist system. The warning came just as Cuba was reeling from a shocking U.S. indictment of its former president, Raúl Castro.

Adding to the tension, the U.S. military announced that the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and its escort ships had entered the Caribbean. But when asked if the naval move was meant to intimidate Cuba, President Donald Trump said, “No, not at all.”

Rubio, a Cuban American who has long been a fierce critic of Havana’s government, called Cuba a “failed state” as it struggles through a severe economic crisis. “Their economic system doesn’t work. It’s broken, and you can’t fix it with the current political system in place,” Rubio told reporters in Miami.

“What they’ve gotten used to all these years is just buying time and waiting us out,” he said. “They’re not going to be able to wait us out or buy time. We’re very serious. We’re very focused.”

Rubio said the U.S. still prefers “a diplomatic solution” but warned that Trump has other options. He also revealed that Cuba had tentatively accepted an offer of $100 million in U.S. aid in exchange for reforms. However, he added that it’s unclear if Washington will accept Cuba’s terms, because the U.S. insists on bypassing GAESA the military backed conglomerate that dominates Cuba’s economy. Earlier this month, the U.S. imposed sanctions on GAESA.

In a separate development, Rubio said the Florida based sister of GAESA’s chief, Adys Lastres Morera, had been arrested by U.S. immigration authorities. On X, he wrote that she had been “managing real estate assets… while also aiding Havana’s communist regime, until I terminated her permanent resident status.”

The indictment against Raúl Castro — the younger brother of the late Fidel Castro, who led Cuba’s 1959 communist revolution dates back to 1996, when Cuban forces shot down two civilian planes flown by anti-Castro pilots, killing several people.

Cuba has called the indictment “despicable” and urged citizens to protest. State newspaper Granma called on Cubans to gather outside the U.S. embassy in Havana on Friday at 7:30 a.m. local time. “This isn’t really an accusation from more than 30 years ago, but rather a public attack on a public figure,” said Fabian Fernandez, a 30-year-old accountant in Havana.

Experts see a pattern. In January, Trump used a U.S. indictment of Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolás Maduro to justify pressuring him. “The idea is to say, we can do to you what we did to Nicolás Maduro,” said Christopher Sabatini, a Latin America expert at Chatham House.

That Venezuela operation cut off free oil to Cuba, which relied on its ally for nearly half its fuel. Now, Cubans are facing power outages of up to 20 hours a day, dry taps, runaway inflation, and mountains of garbage piling up in Havana’s streets.

Beyond murder, Castro is also charged with conspiracy to kill Americans and destruction of aircraft. Cuba has called the 1996 shootdown an act of “legitimate self-defense” against an airspace violation.

China and Russia have both criticized Trump’s moves. Beijing said Washington “should stop brandishing the sanctions stick and the judicial stick against Cuba and stop threatening force at every turn.” Moscow added: “We believe that under no circumstances should such methods which border on violence be used against either former or current heads of state.”