Trump says Cuba wants a deal as exile groups press for political change and officials offer few public details.
MIAMI, FL — Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to move closer this week to a possible U.S.-Cuba agreement after President Donald Trump said Cuba “want[s] to make a deal so badly” and said Rubio would take the lead as the administration weighs its next step.
The moment matters because it would mark a major turn in a relationship shaped for decades by sanctions, diplomatic breaks and failed openings. It also comes as Cuba faces deep economic strain, repeated power failures and new public frustration over daily life on the island. Even so, no formal agreement had been announced by late Monday, and the White House and Cuban government had not publicly released terms, leaving basic questions about the scope of any deal unanswered.
The latest push became public after Trump told CNN in a March 6 phone interview that Cuba was “gonna fall pretty soon” and said the government in Havana wanted an agreement after decades of confrontation. He added that he would “put Marco over there” but suggested other foreign policy matters were taking priority for the moment. By Monday, the report had moved into South Florida’s political conversation, where Cuban American leaders and exile groups treated the possibility as more than casual talk. In Miami’s Little Havana, activist Ramon Saul Sanchez said any arrangement should not become a business opening that leaves Cuba’s leadership in place. Rep. Carlos Giménez, writing on X, said any deal had to move Cuba away from authoritarian rule. At a gathering in west Miami-Dade on Monday night, members of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance said they believed the island might be closer to change than at any point in years.
What remains unclear is the shape of the proposed agreement and who, exactly, is negotiating. Public reporting so far points to administration planning and presidential comments, not a signed framework or a scheduled announcement. Trump has framed the idea broadly, saying Cuba is under severe stress and ready to talk. Rubio, whose family has Cuban roots and who has long taken a hard line on Havana, has not publicly laid out negotiating terms in the latest round. Exile groups in South Florida say they fear any accord that offers protections to Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel or former leader Raúl Castro without clear political concessions. On the island, the pressures are immediate and practical: food, fuel and medicine shortages, long blackouts and shrinking transport options have become part of daily life. Those conditions have sharpened the stakes around any U.S. move, because even a limited deal could affect sanctions pressure, oil flows, migration and political expectations inside Cuba and in Florida.
The broader history helps explain why even vague talk of a deal draws intense scrutiny. The United States and Cuba have been at odds since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, with Washington severing diplomatic ties in 1961 and maintaining an embargo that became one of the longest-running sanctions regimes in U.S. policy. Relations eased sharply under President Barack Obama, who restored diplomatic ties, expanded travel and visited Havana in 2016. But much of that thaw was reversed during Trump’s first term, when his administration tightened sanctions and re-hardened policy toward the communist government. The relationship remained strained afterward, and under Trump’s second term the pressure has intensified again. Analysts say that long cycle of opening and rollback has made both governments, as well as Cuban exiles, wary of grand announcements that are thin on enforceable terms. That is one reason reaction in Miami has focused less on symbolism than on whether a new deal would bring measurable political change, prisoner releases or economic relief.
The procedural next steps are still unsettled. No public text of an agreement has been released, and there has been no announced signing date, White House briefing dedicated to the issue or joint U.S.-Cuban statement. That means the immediate process is still defined more by signals than by formal action. If talks are moving ahead, the first visible milestones would likely be an official administration announcement, comments from the State Department or Cuban foreign ministry, or concrete steps tied to sanctions, diplomatic staffing, travel, migration or humanitarian arrangements. Any broader change in U.S. policy could also run into legal and political limits because some parts of the embargo are rooted in federal law, not just executive action. For now, the administration appears to be using pressure and uncertainty as leverage while leaving open the possibility of a later announcement. Until actual terms emerge, the legal meaning of Trump’s comments remains limited, even as the political effect has already been significant in Miami and Havana alike.
The backdrop in Cuba has given those remarks extra force. Reuters reported this week that students in Havana staged a rare protest over power and internet disruptions that were interfering with their education, a sign of how deeply the energy crisis has hit daily routines. Days earlier, Cuba’s government said it had restored the national electrical grid after a 16-hour blackout that officials linked to fuel shortages. The island has also faced broader rationing and transportation strain as oil supplies tightened. In Miami, that suffering has fed both hope and caution. “This is the moment to end the regime and begin a new phase of Cuban history,” Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance said Monday. Miami Commissioner Rolando Escalona, who said he left Cuba 11 years ago, described conditions on the island in stark terms and said he hoped the current pressure would finally produce change. Those voices reflect a familiar divide in exile politics: relief for Cubans is urgent, but many activists say relief alone is not enough if political power stays where it is.
By late Monday, the story stood at a sensitive midpoint: the White House had hinted at movement, Rubio had been named by Trump as the point man, and exile groups were mobilizing around what any deal should require. The next clear marker will be whether Washington or Havana puts real terms, dates or public commitments on the table.
Author note: Last updated March 10, 2026.