President Trump told a Florida rally that American warships coming back from Iran could force Cuba’s communist government to surrender, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent to finish the deal.
Speaking Friday at Alico Arena on the Florida Gulf Coast University campus in Fort Myers, Trump answered an audience question about Cuba with a blunt pledge of pressure on Havana’s rulers. The appearance backed Republican Rep. Byron Donalds in his race for governor against Democrat David Jolly, in a state where Cuban Americans remain a decisive voting bloc and Cuba policy still cuts deep.
Breitbart News reported that Trump framed the island as unfinished business after Iran, describing U.S. ships passing Cuba, a short stop offshore, and Rubio closing it out.
Trump has said he wants to fundamentally change the island’s communist government and has raised pressure on Havana in his second term. Rubio, the former Florida senator now running the State Department, has handled much of that portfolio.
After the crowd raised Cuba, Trump brushed past hesitation and laid out the sequence in plain terms.
Trump said:
"No, Cuba, he wants to know what about Cuba. Give me a break. Give me a break."
He continued:
"Don’t worry. We’ll take care of Cuba on our way back from Iran. We’ll do a little stopover."
Then he spelled out the picture he wanted voters to see:
"No, we’ll do a little stopover. Actually, what we’re going to do with Cuba is we’re going to come back from Iran. Those beautiful ships will pass Cuba."
Trump added that one vessel would halt roughly 50 yards off the coast, hands would go up, and Rubio would go in “to finish up the deal.” He also said the ships might not need to stop at all.
Trump told the arena:
"We’ll have Marco. We don’t even have to stop."
And:
"We could just put him in there and he’ll figure it out. He’s a great guy."
The remarks cast naval presence and diplomatic muscle as the tools, with Rubio as the closer. No independent detail in the account described actual warship movements tied to Iran or Cuba that day; the lines were Trump’s own description of how he intends to proceed.
In September the administration announced additional sanctions aimed at Cuban elites, financial channels, and resource operations. The State Department accused the communist government of posing a threat to U.S. national security.
That package fits a wider second-term pattern of using economic and diplomatic leverage against regimes the White House calls hostile. Rubio has publicly questioned how long Cuba’s current system can last. In a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity, he described the country as a failure under leaders still pushing a revolution that had not worked.
Florida’s politics make the message land harder. Cuban Americans have long treated Havana’s dictatorship as a live issue, not a foreign-policy abstraction. A president promising ships offshore and a Florida-rooted secretary of state “finishing the deal” speaks directly to that electorate while Donalds courts statewide votes.
Rubio’s State Department has already shown a hard line on removals and expulsions elsewhere, including when Rubio’s department removed 25,000 migrants after home countries refused returns.
The same office moved against Iranian diplomats when talks stalled, with reporting on how Rubio ordered Iranian U.N. diplomats out after negotiations went nowhere.
Trump’s Fort Myers comments sit on top of the September sanctions and the State Department’s national-security accusation against Havana. The through-line is steady: treat the communist government as a problem to be squeezed, not managed indefinitely.
Rubio’s role is central. Trump presented him as the official who can walk in and settle matters once ships appear on the horizon. That matches Rubio’s public record of calling the Cuban system a failed revolution still sold by the same leadership class.
Administration enforcement choices have followed a similar logic on other files, including cases where Rubio expelled Iranian U.N. diplomats who overstayed their welcome in New York.
Domestic executive tools have moved in parallel. Trump has reached for industrial authorities before, as when he tapped the Defense Production Act to expand refining of gasoline and diesel at home.
Political authority fights continue as well. Coverage has followed how Trump claims a right to seek another term after arguing 2020 was cheated, a reminder that second-term fights over power and legitimacy stay in the foreground even as foreign-pressure campaigns advance.
The speech did not define the “deal” Rubio would finish. It gave no timeline beyond the Iran-return framing, no named audience member who asked the Cuba question, and no operational annex on ship schedules. Absolute calendar dating for the Friday rally was not fixed in the account beyond the weekday label.
What it did supply was intent, sequence, and personnel: ships past Cuba, a possible 50-yard stop, hands raised, Rubio in to close. Pair that with September’s sanctions on elites and financial channels, plus the State Department’s charge that the communist government threatens U.S. national security, and the policy direction is not subtle.
For Florida voters watching Donalds versus Jolly, the message was local as much as geopolitical. Cuba remains a ballot issue. Trump put naval leverage and his secretary of state at the center of the answer.
Communist rulers in Havana have survived decades of wishful engagement. Clear pressure, named officials, and visible consequences are a different approach, and voters in Fort Myers heard that difference out loud.