President Donald Trump said he would consider ordering a military campaign against Cuba before the end of his term, even as his administration pulls back from diplomatic talks over the war with Iran following recent midterm election losses.
In an interview on “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” Trump said he wanted to “get Cuba done” before leaving office and suggested Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose parents immigrated from the island, would be eager to take on the effort.
“Well, I want to get Cuba done before I leave, yeah,” Trump told Hewitt when asked if he would order military force to free Cuba. “And we have a very good, talented guy for Cuba named Marco. Because Marco’s parents are from, Marco Rubio, his parents are from Cuba as you probably know. And he would love to do that.”
Trump described Cuba as a “failed” nation and said he was watching the situation closely, pointing to his past electoral support among Cuban Americans in Florida.
“I would like to be able to do it,” Trump said. “I won the Cuban vote by 94% in Florida, and I think I’m more popular now than I was then. And frankly, I’d love to be able to do it for the people, for the Cubans that came and were treated really badly, and they came to America.”
When Hewitt pressed him on whether he would approve a brief military operation — specifically asking if he would be comfortable with “a little bit of military force, a week campaign” — Trump replied: “I would be, I would certainly consider that, yes.”
The president's remarks on Cuba come as the White House shifts its approach to the ongoing war with Iran, which began on February 28 when the U.S. and Israel launched military strikes.
Earlier Thursday morning, Trump announced in a series of Truth Social posts that he had instructed Vice President JD Vance to abandon diplomatic negotiations with Tehran and focus instead on investigating alleged fraud in Democratic-led states and cities.
“We don't need a deal with Iran,” Trump wrote. “Those days have long since passed. We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!”
Oil prices rose, and stocks fell following the announcement as markets reacted to the renewed uncertainty, as reported by Axios.
The directive marks an abrupt shift for Vance, who has spent months leading U.S. negotiating delegations to secure a ceasefire and resume nuclear talks. Just days ago, the vice president had been weighing direct discussions with senior Iranian security official Mohsen Rezaei, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
On Tuesday, Rubio told G7 counterparts in Paris that Trump had decided against resuming major military strikes or pursuing a diplomatic settlement with Iran, opting instead to isolate the regime. The U.S. has repeatedly rejected an existing Iranian ceasefire proposal, which Rubio dismissed as “outrageous and ridiculous and really not realistic.”
Though Trump told reporters on Monday that the war with Iran was “effectively over” and that the U.S. would hold off on threatened strikes at the request of Gulf neighbors including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, he intends to maintain a naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.
Low-level attacks have also continued, with Iranian state media reporting U.S. strikes on Iran's Qeshm island earlier this week following Iranian attacks on tankers in the Gulf.
The war’s economic toll, including higher gas prices, was widely seen as a factor in the Republican Party's recent midterm losses, which cost the GOP control of Congress. Days before Trump's Thursday announcement, Vance publicly broke with the president over the war's political impact.
"The reason we lost is the war," Vance wrote on X last week. "If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest. But everyone knows why we lost."
Trump has defended the war in Iran, saying he would not have handled it differently.
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