He mentioned there are some talks between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Cuban officials.
By Catholics for Catholics
As fuel scarcities wring Havana’s authoritarian government in the aftermath of the U.S. military raid that captured the leader of Venezuela, President Donald Trump said the U.S. could have a “friendly takeover of Cuba.”
“Maybe we’ll have a friendly takeover of Cuba,” Trump told reporters on Feb. 27 as he departed the White House on a trip to Texas, according to Newsmax. “We could very well end up having a friendly takeover of Cuba.” The President told reporters that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was negotiating the issue at a “very high level.”
“The Cuban government is talking with us, and they’re in a big deal of trouble,” Trump said. “They have no money. They have nothing right now, but they’re talking with us.”
The President said that currently Cuba is a fading country that needs to change desperately. He has heard about the island’s woes since he was a child, he added.
“I can see that happening. Marco Rubio is dealing with it at a very high level,” he said. “They have no money, they have no oil, they have no food. And it’s really right now a nation in deep trouble and they want our help.”
.@POTUS: "Cuba is, right now, a failed nation… We're talking to Cuba right now. I have @SecRubio talking to Cuba right now, and they should absolutely make a deal because it's really a humanitarian threat. We have a lot of great Cuban Americans, and they're going to be very… pic.twitter.com/5Fslli5ukx
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 17, 2026
Tensions with Cuba worsened after Cuban forces this week killed four exiles and wounded six others who sailed into Cuban waters aboard a Florida-registered speedboat and opened fire on a Cuban patrol.
However, Rubio rejected it as a U.S. operation and said no U.S. government personnel were implicated.
Still, the Cuban government has denied being in any high-level talks with the United States but has not outright rejected press reports that U.S. officials may be in informal talks with Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, the grandson of former Cuban President Raul Castro.
Axios reported this month that Rubio had been holding secret talks with the grandson of Cuba’s former leader.
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