Trump says Havana wants deal, change may come to Cuba in as little as two weeks

Nora Gámez Torres, Miami Herald on Mar 5, 2026

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President Donald Trump sounded confident Thursday that change might come to Cuba in as little as two weeks, and said the country’s leadership is intent in cutting a deal with the United States.

As he welcomed Inter Miami players, the 2025 Major League Soccer champions, to the White House, Trump told one of the club’s owners, Cuban-American businessman Jorge Mas Santos, that he would be able to take a plane and go to Cuba soon. And he suggested the timeline for a possible deal with Cuba could be as soon as two weeks.

“You are going to go back and won’t need my approval, you just fly back in, I can just see that,” he said. “It’s going to be a great day. We are going to celebrate that separately. I just want to wait a couple of weeks. I wanted to wait a couple of weeks, but we’ll be together again soon, I suspect, celebrating what’s going on in Cuba.”

“They want to make a deal so badly you have no idea,” he added.

The president also said the administration wants to finish the conflict with Iran before acting on a possible Cuba deal.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio “is waiting, but he says, ‘Let’s get this one finished first,’” Trump said, in an apparent reference to Iran.

Earlier on Thursday, Trump told the news outlet Politico that “Cuba’s going to fall, too,” during a phone interview. “We cut off all oil, all money, or we cut off everything coming in from Venezuela, which was the sole source. And they want to make a deal.”

“How long have you been hearing about Cuba, Cuba, Cuba — for 50 years?” Trump added. “And that’s one of the small ones for me.”

This is the first time Trump has mentioned that Cuba is interested in reaching an agreement with the U.S. as well as a possible timeline for an agreement.

For weeks, Trump has said his administration is in talks with leaders on the island, but Cuba has been particularly silent about the ongoing discussions. Cuban diplomats first denied the talks, then called them “speculation.”

Shortly after the capture of Venezuela’s strongman Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces, Trump said he wanted the communist-ruled island to reach a deal with the United States “BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” he said on social media in January.

After cutting oil supplies to Cuba from Venezuela, he threatened Mexico and other suppliers with tariffs. As a result, the country’s economy, already on the verge of collapse, has been paralyzed. The country’s handpicked president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, announced harsh austerity measures on the population in an attempt to “resist” U.S. pressure.

But the Trump administration has sidelined Díaz-Canel, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has engaged in backchannel conversations with a grandson of Raúl Castro, the island’s ultimate ruler, and other people.

On Friday, Trump hinted that the conversations with Cuban leaders were progressing.

“They’re in a big deal of trouble, as you know, they have no money,” he said. “But they’re talking with us, and maybe we’ll have a friendly takeover of Cuba.”

Asked Thursday whether the United States was playing a role in the Cuban government’s demise, Trump told Politico: “Well, what do you think? For 50 years, that’s icing on the cake.”

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