WASHINGTON — The United States is not looking at imminent military action against Havana despite President Donald Trump’s repeated threats that “Cuba is next” and that American warships deployed in the Middle East for the Iran conflict could return by way of the island, U.S. officials say.
The officials involved in preliminary discussions with Cuban authorities also told The Associated Press that they are not optimistic the communist government will accept an offer for tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid, two years of free Starlink internet access for all Cubans, agricultural assistance and infrastructure support.
But they say Cuba has not yet outright refused the offer, which comes with conditions that the government has long resisted, even after the Trump administration imposed new sanctions Thursday on Havana.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks, say there is still time for the government to accept. They cautioned, though, that Trump could change his mind at any time and that military options are still on the table.
The Treasury and State departments announced those sanctions after Trump signed an executive order last week expanding the administration’s authority to impose penalties on Cuba.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez described the measures as “collective punishment” and denounced the U.S. government’s “genocidal intent against Cuba.”
“These actions rely on the assumption that the United States can impose its will on the world while threatening foreign citizens and businesses with illegitimate coercion,” Rodríguez wrote on X.
Trump has repeated suggestions of action against Cuba
Shortly after signing the order Friday, Trump gave a speech mentioning that “Cuba’s got problems” and suggesting that a military show of force there may be in the offing.
He said one of the U.S. aircraft carriers on its way back from the Middle East could “come in, stop about 100 yards offshore, and they’ll say: ‘Thank you very much. We give up.’”
One official involved in the discussions said the new sanctions authority was intended, however, to make clear to the Cubans that the Trump administration’s immediate goal is “not regime change, but changing the regime’s failed policies.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who has long taken a hard line against Cuba’s leadership, has said repeatedly that the country’s government has failed. He said this week that Cuba’s economic model doesn’t work and those in power “can’t fix it.”
“And the reason that they can’t fix it is not just because they’re communist. That’s bad enough,” he told reporters Tuesday at the White House. “But they’re incompetent communists. The only thing worse than a communist is an incompetent one.”
Rubio is visiting Rome and Vatican City, meeting Pope Leo XIV on Thursday in part to discuss Cuba, where the Catholic Church has significant influence.
US officials don’t know if Cuba will accept conditions but say dialogue is open
One U.S. official said it is an open question as to whether Cuba’s top leadership is willing to meet U.S. conditions, which include the release of political prisoners, an end to political and religious repression, and an opening to American private sector investment.
At the same time, the official said the door has not closed to dialogue that could help both countries given Cuba’s proximity to the U.S. The United States sees a national security threat in what the official called increasing influence on the island by China and Russia, including intelligence and logistics cooperation.
Cuban officials are adamant, though, that its internal governance is not up for negotiation.
“Negotiations on issues like regime change or removing the president are out of the question,” Cuban Ambassador to the United Nations Ernesto Soberón Guzmán told reporters last week. “No internal affairs of Cuba are on the table.”
Guzmán also told The Associated Press last month that Havana will not abide by any American “ultimatums” to release political prisoners and that Cuba’s leaders are “preparing for all scenarios” if Trump makes good on threats to intervene.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about military action in Cuba.
AP reveals State Department officials who led delegation to Havana
Contacts between the Trump administration and Cuba have increased, including a meeting earlier this year in the Caribbean nation of St. Kitts and Nevis between Rubio and Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, who is believed to carry significant influence in Havana. He is the grandson of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro.
More recently, two senior State Department officials - Jeremy Lewin, who is in charge of all U.S. foreign assistance, and Michael Kozak, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America - led a delegation to Havana on April 10 and met with the grandson, according to one U.S. official familiar with the meetings.
The top State Department participants had not been previously reported. It was the first U.S. government flight to land in Cuba other than at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay since 2016, during former President Barack Obama’s period of rapprochement with the island.
That meeting was “professional and cordial” but did not produce definitive results, leaving the U.S. delegation skeptical that the Cuban leadership is willing to consider even modest reforms that could ameliorate deteriorating humanitarian conditions, that official said.
U.S. officials have often rejected Cuban complaints that the American embargo on the island and, more recently, the Trump administration’s energy blockade are responsible for the country’s hardships.
But Cuba’s crises have deepened following the energy blockade, imposed after the U.S. in January removed Nicolás Maduro as leader of Venezuela, which was Cuba’s main source of energy.
Cuban officials have denounced the U.S. rejection of their complaints.
“Traveling 4,500 miles to meet with the Pope, supposedly to request his ‘good offices’ in delivering U.S. humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people through the Church, while at the same time claiming that the blockade does not exist, is a blatant insult to human intelligence,” Guzmán said Thursday in a statement.
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Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Aamer Madhani and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.
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