President Trump claimed Friday that the Communist dictatorship on the island of Cuba is on its last legs.
“Cuba is gonna fall pretty soon, by the way, unrelated, but Cuba is gonna fall too,” the president told CNN host Dana Bash in a phone interview.
“They want to make a deal so badly. They want to make a deal, and so I’m going to put [Secretary of State] Marco [Rubio] over there and we’ll see how that works out. We’re really focused on this one [Iran] right now. We’ve got plenty of time, but Cuba’s ready — after 50 years.
“I’ve been watching it for 50 years, and it’s fallen right into my lap — because of me, it’s fallen — but it’s nevertheless fallen right into the lap. And we’re doing very well.”
Cuba’s economy has been in a tailspin since the United States cut off its access to oil and money coming in from Venezuela earlier this year, resulting in fuel shortages, power cuts and food scarcity.
Trump mentioned Cuba several times on Thursday when he hosted Inter Miami CF, the 2025 Major League Soccer champions, at the White House.
“We think that we want to fix — finish this one first, but that will be just a question of time before you and a lot of unbelievable people are going to be going back to Cuba, hopefully not to stay,” Trump told his audience, which was full of South Floridians.
Trump also spoke glowingly of Rubio, whose parents escaped from Cuba and who has long expressed the desire to overthrow the Castro regime.
“You’ve been doing a fantastic job on a place called Cuba,” the president said of his secretary of state.
