Donald Trump told a campaign rally in Fort Myers, Florida, on Friday that U.S. warships coming home from the war on Iran will stop off Cuba until its government surrenders. "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 Marco Rubio in to finish up the deal," Trump said, at a rally for Byron Donalds' campaign for governor.

Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, used his official account on X a few hours later to ask Cubans to work for the CIA. "To those who seek to create positive change in Cuba," he wrote, "now is the time", and he told them to "seize this opportunity to create the change you desire through a discrete partnership with the CIA." The CIA has published instructions telling Cubans how to contact it without being traced.

The United States has kept Cuba under an oil blockade since January, when Trump declared that "no more oil or money" would reach the island after U.S. forces seized Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro. Cuba ran out of diesel and fuel oil in May, with parts of Havana losing power for 20 to 22 hours a day, and its transport minister said this week that public transport has fallen to an all-time low.