Rubio Openly Invites Cubans to Partner With the CIA as Trump Says Cuba Comes After Iran

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and the man running President Trump's Cuba policy, did something on Friday that American officials almost never do out loud. He publicly invited people inside a communist country to work with the CIA against their own government.

"To those who seek to create positive change in Cuba - now is the time," Rubio wrote on 𝕏. "The disappointment of failed promises, corruption, and the privileged lives of only a few; seize this opportunity to create the change you desire through a discrete partnership with the CIA" (@SecRubio on 𝕏).

By Friday night the post had passed 2.3 million views and 31,000 likes. Then the CIA itself joined in. The agency quoted Rubio's message in Spanish, word for word, and attached a nearly two-minute Spanish-language video aimed at Cubans (@CIA on 𝕏).

Trump: Cuba comes after Iran

Rubio's message landed hours after President Trump told a rally crowd in Fort Myers, Florida, that Cuba is next on his list once the war with Iran is done. He said U.S. warships heading home from the Middle East could swing past the island on the way (AP).

"We'll have one of them stop about 50 yards off the coast," Trump said. "They'll raise up their hands, and then we're going to send Marco Rubio in to finish up the deal" (Times Now; Fox News).

Put the two together and the message to Havana is hard to miss. The president is talking about ships. His top diplomat is talking about the people. And the spy agency is handing out the invitation in their own language (Just the News; CNN en Español).

Why now

This didn't come out of nowhere. The Trump administration put a de facto energy blockade on Cuba in January, threatening sanctions on any country that ships fuel to the island of 9.4 million people. Blackouts and fuel shortages have deepened ever since (France 24 / AFP; Times Now).

Cuba also lost its most important ally this year, when Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro was toppled after a U.S. indictment gave Trump the legal footing to act. At the United Nations in September, Trump called Cuba a "failed state" and declared that "freedom will be coming to Cuba," and the Cuban delegation walked out (France 24 / AFP; Times Now).

Then came the charges. On May 20, a federal grand jury indicted Raúl Castro, the 95-year-old brother of Fidel and Cuba's defense minister in 1996, along with five military pilots, over the Feb. 24, 1996 shootdown of two unarmed Brothers to the Rescue planes. Four men flying for the Miami exile group were killed. This week Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier added a state warrant charging Castro with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, signed by Miami-Dade's chief judge (NBC 6 Miami; Florida Department of Law Enforcement).

Rubio has also been warning for months that the regime isn't just a problem 90 miles away. Over the summer he called Cuba an "influence and espionage superpower" with agents inside the U.S. government, pointing to convicted spies like former ambassador Manuel Rocha and Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Ana Belén Montes (Fox News).

Havana's answer

Cuba's foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, answered the rally remarks with a warning about the island's rocky shoreline. "We reject every threat related to US ambitions toward Cuba," he wrote. "Our coastline is full of beautiful beaches, but there are also razor-sharp limestone spikes, an inhospitable environment for those who make it to our shores with hostile purposes and lust for domination" (@BrunoRguezP on 𝕏).

Rubio's post didn't name an operation or say what a "partnership" would involve, and it didn't need to. For 67 years the regime has told Cubans that America is the enemy. The U.S. secretary of state, a Cuban-American, just told them the door is open and the timing is theirs (Fox News).

What comes next

Think of it as a help-wanted sign hung on the front of the building instead of slipped under the back door. The CIA has recruited openly before, with online videos aimed at people in other rival countries, but rarely with a cabinet secretary signing the ad and a president describing warships offshore the same day.

Trump gave no timeline for any Cuba move, and Iran comes first. But with the blockade squeezing, Castro under indictment in two courts, and Washington now asking Cubans directly to help write the ending, the pressure on Havana has never been this open (AP; NBC 6 Miami).