been in talks<\/a> with Raul Rodriguez Castro, the grandson of Raul Castro, who is still considered a key player in Cuban politics behind the scenes. Rubio told reporters on Feb. 25 after meeting with Caribbean leaders in Saint Kitt\u2019s capital that the U.S. is willing to ease Cuba\u2019s financial crisis, worsened by the United States\u2019 blocking of oil shipment to the island, if the country\u2019s leaders are willing to enact reforms.<\/p>\n\u201cCuba needs to change,\u201d Rubio said \u201cAnd it doesn\u2019t have to change all at once. It doesn\u2019t have to change from one day to the next. Everyone is mature and realistic here. We\u2019re seeing that process play out, for example, in Venezuela.\u201d<\/p>\n
Venezuela used to export oil to Cuba before the Trump administration\u2019s takeover of the South American nation\u2019s oil industry in January. The Trump administration cut off those shipments to Cuba, then successfully threatened Mexico with tariffs to get it to stop sending oil to Cuba.<\/p>\n
The Legislature is likely to pass the amended Cuba bill. Not only do legislative leaders support the amendment, the greater bill is already about a popular Republican subject: \u201cforeign influence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the added provisions, the governor could immediately begin new trade through an executive order if \u201cthe Federal Government changes the diplomatic status of Cuba.\u201d<\/p>\n
The governor would then submit \u201cwritten recommendations for policy changes\u201d to the Senate president and House speaker to take up and pass during the next legislative session.<\/p>\n
While campaigning for governor at the iconic Versailles Cuban restaurant on Monday, Donalds, who has Trump\u2019s endorsement, said he wasn\u2019t \u201cprivy\u201d to \u201cconversations going on behind the scenes\u201d related to the president\u2019s plans on Cuba. But, like Perez, the House speaker, he said he trusts Trump and Rubio to \u201cdo the right thing on behalf of the people of Cuba here in America\u201d and on the island.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo I support an end to the regime in Cuba?\u201d Donalds asked. \u201c100%.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was originally published March 2, 2026 at 4:14 PM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tallahassee Two days after the U.S. and Israeli militaries killed Iran\u2019s supreme leader, Florida politicians are calling on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[83108,83111,225,227,226,23030,83109,83110],"class_list":["post-175658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-florida-cuba-trade","tag-free-trade-with-cuba","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news","tag-miami-politics","tag-regime-change-cuba","tag-sb-1178-amendment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}