Rubio Shuts Down Exit Rumors as State Hits Cuba Networks

Leave a CommentRubio Shuts Down Exit Rumors as State Hits Cuba NetworksCommentary

I am not interested in anonymous gossip about who might leave the Cabinet. On Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio answered that noise the way public servants should: on the record, and then by doing the job.

Rubio told the New York Times that finishing President Trump’s second term “has always been my plan.” He said he does not know where the resignation stories come from. “I love the work I’m doing,” he added, and joked about the dual roles he holds: “And plus I always laugh when they say he’s going to leave his job. I go, ‘Which one?’”

What the White House and State said

The rumors followed reports in Bloomberg and Britain’s Independent suggesting Rubio might step aside, including talk of distancing himself from the Iran war and of a possible 2028 run. The New York Post reported that White House spokesperson Beni Rae Harmony called the chatter “fake news” and “a fabricated hoax being peddled by anonymous sources with no factual information.” Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairs Dylan Johnson labeled the Independent’s account “completely baseless fake news from made-up anonymous ‘sources.’”

Rubio declined to discuss 2028. “I literally will not talk about 2028 anymore,” he told the Times. “I just won’t do it.” He is scheduled next Friday to give his first major post-midterm speech at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention in Washington.

The same day’s Cuba sanctions

While the rumor mill ran, Rubio and the State Department announced further sanctions on Cuban regime networks. On X, Rubio wrote that the United States “will not tolerate subversive communist networks in our hemisphere,” and that Havana relies on state-owned enterprises, joint ventures and offshore intermediaries while foreign backers supply military equipment.

According to a State Department fact sheet summarized by the Miami Herald, the administration expanded the sectors covered under Trump’s May 1 executive order to include electronics, manufacturing, marine and technology. State sanctioned eight entities and two individuals and blocked five oil tankers, adding them to Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals list.

Those named include Guillermo Faustino Rodríguez López-Calleja, described by State as part of Cuba’s petroleum shipping network; Any Rodríguez Lastres, daughter of GAESA president Gen. Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera; Cuban firms Cubaelectrónica and Tecnosime; shipping-linked companies including Caroil Transport Marine; and China-based CEIEC and Beijing H&C Technologies, which State said worked with Cuban arms buyer Sociedad Mercantil Duna on military-related exports this year.

“The Trump Administration will not stand by while the Cuban regime funnels the island’s resources to its military elite, while regime insiders and their family members profit from opaque offshore networks,” Rubio said in the State statement. He said the ruling elite hoards energy, shipping and technology, “leaving the Cuban people to contend with blackouts, shortages, and a stagnant economy.”

The bottom line

I will take Rubio at his word until his actions say otherwise. Finishing the term was always the plan. Loving the work is not a slogan when the same afternoon brings new pressure on GAESA’s offshore web and Chinese military suppliers.

Washington’s Cuba policy has too often been theater. Designating the people who move the oil, run the import houses and feed the armed forces is the kind of pressure that matters. The White House should keep Rubio where he is and keep stacking the list.

Anonymous sources selling an early exit do not get to set the agenda. The Republic needs a secretary of state who stays at his post and keeps the pressure on Havana.

I just couldn’t resist this one

I love the Rubio couch memes!