Madrid/In the long interview that Fox News did this Monday to the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, there was not much space for Cuba. Journalist Trey Yingst, who focused mainly on the conflict with Iran, only asked him one question about the island, general enough – “What do you think should happen in Cuba and what is the Trump Administration trying to avoid?” – that the US chancellor could not avoid repeating himself.
Rubio began by responding that Cuba “is two things at this moment”: on the one hand, “a failed state” and, on the other, “a host country of adversaries and competitors.” He illustrated the first by saying that “it does not have a real economy, so its people live in misery and do not have political freedoms,” and the second, by saying that “the Chinese, the Russians and others regularly use Cuba for their own purposes, just 90 miles from our coasts.”
This proximity, he stressed, is what makes the Island “different from anything in the Middle East or anything that is happening in Asia. It is literally 90 miles from Key West, just over a hundred miles from Mar-a-Lago. Closer, impossible. That’s why we care; that’s why it’s important.”
“The reason why the Cuban economy has been collapsing for a long time is because Marxism in general does not work, and even less so when those who try to apply it are incompetent”
“There are only two things that can happen in Cuba,” he asserted, answering the question they had asked him. Either “total collapse” or “it gets better.” Regarding the first, he pointed out: “not because of us.” And he extended: “The reason why the Cuban economy has been collapsing for a long time is because Marxism in general does not work, and even less so when those who try to apply it are incompetent, know nothing about economics and do not care at all. They only care about control.” If a humanitarian collapse were to happen, he said, it would be “bad for our country.”
The possibility that, on the contrary, it improves depends on “very substantial and serious economic reforms,” which, however, are impossible “with these people in charge.” He did not specify whether he was referring to President Miguel Díaz-Canel or some other leader of the Castro leadership.
“These people in charge are not only economically incompetent, but they have opened the doors for the adversaries of the United States to operate in Cuban territory against our national interests with total impunity.”
Rubio concluded the question by stating: “We are not going to allow a foreign military, intelligence or security apparatus to operate with impunity 90 miles from the coasts of the United States. That will not happen under the Trump presidency.”
