By Alyssa Oursler
Nov 12 (Belly of the Beast) For Cuba, the storms keep coming. As if hurricanes, earthquakes, multiple failures of the electrical grid, and the re-election of Trump weren’t enough, it seems Sen. Marco Rubio will be Trump’s Secretary of State.
Rubio was the architect of Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy toward Cuba and has claimed it as one of his greatest accomplishments. Now, Rubio would go from being the shadow Secretary of State for Latin America to the real thing.
There’s irony to the appointment.
In 2015, in addition to making fun of each other for parts of their anatomy, Rubio labeled Trump a “con artist” and Trump called Rubio a “total lightweight” whom he wouldn’t hire to run even a small company.
A deeper irony stems from the fact that Trump’s re-election campaign was built on xenophobic rhetoric around immigration. And yet, the war on Cuba that he and Rubio unleashed — and which Biden has done little to reverse — has driven unprecedented migration of Cubans to the United States.
Making Life Harder for Cubans
Trump’s policies and the COVID-19 pandemic created the perfect storm for an economic implosion in which Cuba’s GDP contracted by double-digits. From 2022 to 2023, an estimated 18% of Cuba’s population has fled as the economic and humanitarian situation worsens.
Rubio’s appointment suggests the Trump administration, despite anti-immigrant and isolationist rhetoric, will likely accelerate a maximum pressure policy that would continue to ravage Cuba’s economy while fueling migration to the United States.
“Rubio will not only block any efforts to help Cuba through the terrible economic and social crisis that the Cuban people are enduring, he will probably propose piling on new sanctions that will make their lives even harder,” says William LeoGrande, a Cuba expert and professor of government at American University. “But he and President Trump should beware that [anything that] makes life harder for Cubans will just convince more of them that it’s time to leave and come to the United States, with or without a visa.”
Rubio and Friends (from Florida) Hijack Cuba Policy
Rubio is also emblematic of the outsized power a handful of Florida lawmakers have over the island’s fate.
When Trump was first elected, an interagency review about U.S.-Cuba policy was held. Most officials involved were “unanimous in their support for the Cuba policies already on the books, including the Obama-era normalization efforts,” Mother Jones reported.
It did not take long for Cuban-American hardliners to hijack policy toward Cuba and the rest of Latin America.
Leading the way was Rubio, who would play a key role inserting Cuban-American hardliners into top positions in the Trump administration. John Barsa was named head of USAID’s Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, and Mauricio Claver-Carone, a former pro-embargo lobbyist, went to the National Security Council, where he became the architect of some of Trump’s most damaging measures, including activation of Title III of the Helms Burton Act.
Rep. María Elvira Salazar and Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, also hardliners from the Sunshine State, praised Rubio’s appointment.
Salazar is the sponsor of the FORCE Act, which aims to make the removal of Cuba from the “state sponsors of terrorism” list — a designation made by Trump during the final days of his first term — impossible without regime change. Previously, it was assumed that, should the bill pass the House, it would fail in the Senate. Now, the Republicans have a Senate majority and are expected to maintain control of the House.
Never mind that the U.S. is isolated in claiming that Cuba sponsors terrorism (there is consensus among intelligence officials that Cuba does not sponsor terrorism), much like it is isolated in defending its policy towards Cuba writ large. Last month, the entire United Nations General Assembly, save the U.S. and Israel, voted for an end to U.S. sanctions on Cuba.
Florida Republicans Take Center Stage
Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who is as hard-line on Cuba policy as his Cuban-American colleagues, is also vying to be the Senate’s next majority leader, with Trump allies Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk throwing their weight behind him. The vote takes place tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Trump has asked Rep. Mike Waltz, yet another Florida Republican, to serve as his national security advisor.
In 2021, Waltz said the U.S. needs a “new Monroe Doctrine” to prevent China from using Cuba as a spy base. As Belly of the Beast has reported, there is no evidence China has a spy base in Cuba.
Despite Rubio’s extremist policy positions, his appointment — which LeoGrande calls “the culmination of Cuba’s annus horribilis” — seems inevitable.
Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, has wasted no time in expressing his support.
The far-right ideologues who dominate politics in Trump’s home state of Florida, it seems, will be running foreign policy when he returns to the White House next year.
Don’t Miss The War on Cuba
To learn more about how Marco Rubio came to “directly design” Cuba policy during Trump’s first presidency, and its devastating impact on the Cuban people, watch our award-winning documentary series The War on Cuba.
