Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a direct appeal to Cubans on Friday, encouraging them to join a “discrete partnership” with the CIA if they want to see change in their country.
“The disappointment of failed promises, corruption, and the privileged lives of only a few; seize this opportunity to create the change you desire through a discrete partnership with the CIA,” Rubio posted on X.
Rubio’s call for Cuban citizens to partner with the CIA comes during a year of intensifying U.S. pressure on Cuba’s communist regime. The U.S. government has initiated similar announcements in the past, with the CIA aiming recruitment messaging at possible dissidents in China and Russia, under both the Biden and Trump administrations.
“To those who seek to create positive change in Cuba – now is the time,” Rubio said in the post.
The X post did not give any further instruction on how Cubans should contact the U.S. intelligence agency. The CIA has released video advertisements in the past to boost spy recruiting numbers in Moscow and Beijing.
“Those around you may not want to hear the truth. But we do. You are not powerless,” a 2024 CIA recruitment video in Russia translated by Reuters said.
The FBI has also used social media under the Biden administration to disseminate intelligence recruiting messages in foreign adversarial countries.
The Trump administration’s pressure campaign on the Cuban regime has been a focal point of its foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere in 2026. In February, the administration initiated an oil blockade on the island, while President Donald Trump said he believed there could be a “friendly takeover” of the country’s communist regime as he was in talks with the government.
At the end of September, Rubio addressed the state of Cuba in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity after the island country’s power grid collapsed in mid-September. Rubio said Cuba has “already fallen” and that there cannot be “economic freedom in Cuba if you don’t have political freedom first.”
RISING TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PRESSURE ON CUBA DIVIDES HILL DEMOCRATS
“The truth is Cuba has already fallen. It’s not — it doesn’t have a functional economy and it’s governed by people who continue to preach about some revolution that has been dead for 20 years that’s never worked,” said Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants.
“They have a regime that’s capable of and has jailed and killed people. But it’s not a functional government and it’s not a functional country,” he continued.