Trump Revives Cuba Intervention Talk at Florida Rally, Saying Warships Returning From Iran Could Stop Off the Island

President Donald Trump on Friday revived the idea of U.S. military pressure on Cuba, telling a Republican rally in Fort Myers that warships returning from the Iran war could stop off the island's coast before Secretary of State Marco Rubio is sent in "to finish up the deal." The remarks, which came in response to a shouted question from the crowd, landed in the state that is home to about 61% of all Cubans living in the United States, according to Pew Research Center figures cited by Florida Politics.

Trump had first floated the idea earlier this year but had not raised it in recent months, The Associated Press reported. Minutes after he spoke, Rubio, the Miami-born son of Cuban immigrants, posted a message on social media telling Cubans that "now is the time" for change.

What Trump said

The comments came at Florida Gulf Coast University's Alico Arena, where Trump was rallying for gubernatorial nominee Byron Donalds and U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody 11 days before the Nov. 3 election.

"We'll do a little stopover. Actually, what we're going to do with Cuba is, we're going to come back from Iran. Those beautiful ships will pass Cuba. We'll have one of them stop about 50 yards off the coast. They'll raise up their hands. And then we're going to send (Secretary of State) Marco Rubio in to finish up the deal."

Trump did not describe what such a deal would include or set any timeline. The Iran war he has long forecast would wind down has not yet ended, the AP noted, and voters heading into the midterms have voiced concern about its effect on the price of gas and groceries.

Trump has been previewing a Rubio-led deal with Cuba since March, when he said the secretary of state would take "one hour off" from Iran and then "finish up a deal on Cuba," Florida Politics reported.

Rubio's call to Cubans

Shortly after Trump spoke, Rubio posted a message addressed "to those who seek to create positive change" in Cuba, urging them "to seize this opportunity to create the change you desire through a discrete partnership with the CIA," according to the AP. He did not identify any specific operation or explain what that cooperation would involve.

Rubio had not addressed Cuba in depth publicly for several weeks. In a Sept. 29 interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, he said, "The truth is Cuba has already fallen," describing an island without a functional economy. "We're never going to allow Cuba to become a base of operation against American interests or pose a threat to our national security," he said then.

Cuba's foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez, rejected the remarks from Trump and Rubio on Friday, condemning what he described as U.S. threats and aspirations of domination over the island, according to international news reports.

A year of escalating pressure

The rally remarks are the latest turn in a year in which the administration has steadily raised the stakes with Havana, much of it with a direct Florida connection.

In January, Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency over Cuba. On Jan. 3, a U.S. operation captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, Havana's closest ally in the region, an event celebrated in Doral and other South Florida communities with large Venezuelan populations. Trump cited Maduro's capture again in Fort Myers on Friday. Some Cuban exiles read the Venezuela operation as a sign Washington could act the same way in Cuba, according to reporting by the Florida Bulldog as summarized by Periodico Cubano.

In May, Trump and Rubio raised the specter of military intervention in Cuba after the administration announced federal criminal charges against Raul Castro, the island's former leader, over the 1996 shootdown of two Brothers to the Rescue planes. Trump told reporters then that past presidents had considered intervening in Cuba for decades but that "it looks like I'll be the one that does it," the AP reported.

The tone shifted in September. At the United Nations General Assembly, Trump said Rubio was "deep into negotiations with Cuba." Days later he told reporters, "I don't think we'll need the military. Cuba is failing very badly." Rubio and other aides have met with Cuban officials in recent months, but the U.S. side came away unimpressed, leading to more sanctions, the AP reported. This week the two countries clashed again at the U.N. ahead of the annual vote condemning the U.S. embargo.

Florida's own cases against Havana

Florida has opened its own legal front. On Oct. 19, Attorney General James Uthmeier announced a state arrest warrant charging Castro, 95, with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the 1996 shootdown, which killed Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario de la Pena and Armando Alejandre Jr. The no-bond warrant was secured by the Office of Statewide Prosecution and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and the affidavit alleges Cuban spies operating in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties supplied information used in the attack, WPTV reported.

Uthmeier acknowledged Castro is unlikely to "march himself into Miami," but said the charges limit where the former leader can travel, CBS News Miami reported. Critics, including Uthmeier's Democratic opponent, Jose Javier Rodriguez, questioned the timing of the announcement on the first day of early voting in Miami-Dade.

Havana, for its part, has pointed accusations at Florida. After a Feb. 25 shootout off Villa Clara province between Cuban border guards and a Florida-registered speedboat that left five people aboard dead, Cuban prosecutors charged survivors with terrorism. Federal authorities said the boat had been stolen from the Florida Keys. On Oct. 19, Cuban officials presented findings accusing Maritza Lugo Fernandez, a Florida resident who leads an exile political group, of helping organize the raid and accused Washington of letting such groups operate with impunity, according to Reuters reporting. Lugo Fernandez has denied the allegations, and no U.S. authority has confirmed Havana's account.

Reaction in Miami's Cuban community

For South Florida's Cuban American community, the rally remarks land amid a mix of hope, skepticism and fatigue. When Trump floated a "friendly takeover" of Cuba in February, customers at Little Havana's Versailles Restaurant were divided. "I wish the U.S. would invade Cuba, take over and make it back to the beautiful island it was," one Cuban native told Local 10 News, while another said Cubans "have to go alone."

The Castro warrant drew strong praise from exile leaders this month. Miami-Dade County Commissioner Natalie Milian Orbis said "Florida answered," and Marcell Felipe, chairman of the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora, called the charges overdue, CBS News Miami reported.

But nine months after the Maduro operation, with no action against Havana, some exiles have grown frustrated. The Florida Bulldog, drawing on calls to Miami Spanish-language radio, reported that some listeners demanded military action and threatened to stop voting Republican, according to a summary of that report by Periodico Cubano. Cuban social media users largely greeted Friday's remarks with mockery and skepticism, with some calling them an election-season message, CiberCuba reported.

Why it matters for Florida

Any move toward Cuba carries direct consequences for Florida, from migration across the Florida Straits to the political weight of the Cuban American vote in Miami-Dade. Cuba has struggled since 2020 with an economic and energy crisis that has brought blackouts, food shortages and inflation to its 10 million residents, and hundreds of thousands of Cubans have migrated, many to the United States, the AP reported.

The remarks also arrive in the final stretch of a midterm in which both Florida parties are courting Cuban American voters, with Uthmeier, who brought the Castro case, on the ballot for attorney general.

What's next

The White House has not announced any military deployment toward Cuba, and Trump offered no detail on when or how the ships he described would be used. The U.N. General Assembly's annual vote on the embargo is still to come, and both the federal and state cases against Castro remain pending, with Uthmeier acknowledging an arrest is unlikely unless the former leader travels to a country willing to hand him over.