Trump says Rubio is working with Cuba on a possible transition

Donald Trump assured that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is working on a transition in Cuba. The president made the comments aboard Air Force One, after being asked by a journalist about the political future of the island that has been under the Castro brothers' regime for more than 60 years, today led by Miguel Diaz-Canel.

In early January, the Trump administration succeeded in capturing Venezuela's dictator, Nicolás Maduro. He has subsequently been working with Delcy Rodriguez, whom they see as a transition figure with an eventual call for elections.

In this context, the president was asked if he plans a similar scenario in Cuba, witha transitional political figure.

"Cuba is right now a failed nation, and they don't even have jet fuel to get for airplanes to take off. They're plugging up their runway. We're talking to Cuba right now and Marco Rubio talking to Cuba right now, and they should absolutely make a deal because it's a human it's really a humanitarian threat. And we have a lot of great Cuban Americans, and, they're gonna be very happy when They're gonna be able to go back and say hello to their relatives and do things that they should have been allowed to do for a long time," the president replied.

"I'm very interested in the people that are here that were treated so badly by Castro and the Cuban authorities. They have been treated horribly. So we'll see how it all turns out. But Cuba and us, we are talking. In the meantime, there's an embargo. There's no oil. There's no money. There's no anything," he added.

Rubio, of Cuban parents, expressed recently, and during a Senate hearing, his desire to see the Castro regime fall. "I think we would like to see the regime there change. That doesn’t mean that we’re going to make a change, but we would love to see a change. There’s no doubt about the fact that it would be of great value, a great benefit to the United States if Cuba was no longer governed by an autocratic regime," he told Hawaii Democratic Senator Brian Schatz.

One of the names being bandied about to lead the transition in Cuba is Alejandro Castro Espín, son of Raúl Castro and Vilma Espín. The 60-year-old military officer was in charge of the island's Defense and National Security Council.