Subtle Change? U.S. Secretary Of State Rubio About Current Government Of Cuba Officials Implementing Economc Changes Is Not Optimistic, But "We’ll give them a chance."
/United States Department of State
Washington DC
14 May 2026
Aboard Air Force One
Secretary of State Marco Rubio With Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel
QUESTION: Yeah. Let’s go to the Western Hemisphere. And what is the relationship with Venezuela? And I know it’s got to be an issue near and dear to your heart.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah.
QUESTION: I know your family background, and that’s Cuba.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, on Venezuela it’s been four months, so I think we’ve made some steady progress on improving Venezuela. Look, we’re trying to normalize that place. This is a place where – a country of incredible wealth, but all the wealth was being stolen. It wasn’t going to benefit the Venezuelan people. So we’ve created mechanisms. All the money they make on oil now goes into a bank account in New York, and it’s audited by KPMG, and it’s being used to pay the salaries of teachers and firefighters and police officers and university professors. So for the first time in over a decade, the wealth of the country is actually benefitting the people of Venezuela. But there’s more work to be done.
Ultimately, as we work through this process, we will have to reach a stage of transition where you’re going to have to normalize your government. There’s going to have to be a process that’s legitimate that people look at and say this is – this is a legitimate, permanent government – presidency, elections, things of that nature. That moment has to arrive, but it has to be – we don’t want to wait too long. We want to see it happen. But you don’t want to move too fast either because the whole thing can break. So it’s a difficult thing to manage, but it’s only four months in, and I’m very – I think we should be pleased. Venezuela is a better place today than it was four months ago, but it needs to continue to stay on that path.
And the case of Cuba is a very different situation. There is no economy in Cuba. To the extent there’s any wealth in Cuba, it doesn’t go – it doesn’t – forget about it doesn’t go to the people. It doesn’t even go to the government. The wealth is controlled by a private – by a company owned by military generals. They take all the money. They’re sitting on billions of dollars, okay? This is a country where people are literally now eating garbage from the streets, but they have a company that controls all of the moneymaking there that’s sitting on $15-16 billion.
So it’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different. But I believe – it’s my personal opinion – you cannot change the economic trajectory of Cuba as long as the people who are in charge of it now are in charge of it. That’s what’s going to have to change because these people have proven incapable. I hope I’m wrong. We’ll give them a chance. But I don’t think it’s going to happen. I don’t think we’re going to be able to change the trajectory of Cuba as long as these people are in charge in that regime.
QUESTION: If these people are not in charge, I mean, I can envision American wealth and companies – it would be – it could become —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, I —
QUESTION: — the destination —
SECRETARY RUBIO: The one thing Cuba would enjoy is an enormous expatriate community, Cuban Americans that would go back and invest. But I think there would be interest globally. Look, they have significant mineral deposits in Cuba. One of the – and some of the rare earth minerals, some of the best in the world. They have, obviously, an incredible opportunity with tourism, with agriculture – very rich farmland. So Cuba should not be a poor country. Its people should not be starving. Its people should be prosperous. And what’s most interesting is you see Cubans everywhere in the world – in the United States, but you see them in Europe, you see them in Panama. Cubans leave Cuba, they go to other countries, and they become successful. The only place in the world where Cubans can’t seem to prosper and succeed is in Cuba.
