Rubio links Cuba sanctions to regime change amid ongoing energy crisis

U.S. sanctions on Cuba are tied to political change on the island, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday, at a time when the country faces widespread power outages, unrest and a worsening economic crisis.

“Suffice it to say that the embargo depends on the political change on the island,” Rubio told reporters at the White House. “The law was signed into law. And as a result, their economy is dysfunctional. A dysfunctional economy. A survival economy….What they had was sustained by subsidies from the Soviet Union and now from Venezuela. They don’t get subsidies anymore. That’s why they’re in big trouble. And the people in charge of them don’t know how to fix it. So they have to put new people in.”

Rubio’s comments come as Cuba faces a deepening energy crisis that is fueling protests and instability.

According to the statements of the US Embassy and Cuban officials, approximately 10 million people were left without electricity due to the collapse of the electricity grid throughout the country.

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President Donald Trump has stated that his administration is actively engaged.

Trump told reporters: “Cuba is in very bad shape right now. They’re talking to Marco.” “We’re going to do something with Cuba very soon… We’re interested in Cuba.”

Trump stepped up his rhetoric against Cuba on Monday, saying he expected to have the “honor” of “somehow taking over Cuba” and that “I can do anything I want” with the neighboring country.

A senior State Department official rejected suggestions that US sanctions were responsible for the humanitarian situation, saying: “Widespread power outages have unfortunately been common in Cuba for many years, a symptom of the failed regime’s incompetence and inability to provide even the most basic goods and services to its people.”

“This is the tragic outcome of more than 60 years of communist rule,” the official added. “Once the Caribbean’s crown jewel, the island has fallen into extreme poverty and darkness.

“As President Trump has said, what’s left of the regime should make a deal and eventually allow the Cuban people to be free and prosperous with the help of the United States,” the official told Fox News Digital.

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Protesters gather outside the Communist Party headquarters in Morón, Cuba, as a fire burns in the street during overnight riots. Video obtained by Fox News Digital shows demonstrators attempting to set fire to the building amid protests linked to widespread power outages. (Reuters)

Cuban human rights activist Rosa María Payá has argued that the current crisis reflects systemic collapse within the regime, not external pressure.

“The disappearance is the collapse of the regime becoming visible: 65 years of totalitarianism is finally exhausting itself,” Payá told Fox News Digital. “The protests are Cubans’ refusal to disappear into that darkness.”

He rejected claims that US sanctions were driving the humanitarian situation.

“Cubans are not suffering because of American policy,” he said. “They are suffering because of the dictatorship. The pressure on the regime is working. What hurts the Cuban people is legitimizing it.”

“The only way to end the humanitarian catastrophe is to end the regime,” Payá added. “This is the demand of the Cuban people.”

Recent power outages and shortages have been linked to failures in key infrastructure, including the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric power plant, as well as fuel shortages following U.S. actions to reduce oil shipments from Venezuela, one of Cuba’s main energy suppliers.

At the same time, Pentagon officials told lawmakers they had no plans to invade Cuba, even though they described it as a long-standing security problem.

Joseph Humire, who serves as assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and American security affairs, told a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday that he was “not informed of any plans for Cuba.”

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Riot police march through the streets after a demonstration against the government of President Miguel Diaz-Canel in Havana’s Arroyo Naranjo Municipality on July 12, 2021. (Yamil Lage/AFP)

He described Cuba as “one of the most powerful intelligence adversaries we have in the United States” and added that Cuban officials have operated throughout the region and have “defended Nicolás Maduro in Caracas” in past operations.

The Cuban government blames US sanctions for worsening the crisis, while US officials argue this is due to decades of economic mismanagement and dependence on foreign subsidies.