Trump cheers idea of Marco Rubio serving as next president of Cuba: 'Sounds good to me!'

WASHINGTON, DC: President Donald Trump couldn’t resist jumping into the latest running gag about Secretary of State Marco Rubio on social media.

After a user posted, “Marco Rubio will be president of Cuba,” Trump responded on Sunday, January 11, from his Truth Social account. “Sounds good to me!" he quipped. 

The comment landed amid chatter around Rubio’s ever-growing influence in the Trump administration.

Marco Rubio becomes a meme machine

The gag works because Rubio really does seem to have more titles than a Broadway playbill. Officially, he is the Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, and Acting Archivist of the United States.

Until recently, he also pulled double duty as acting administrator of the US Agency for International Development, before the agency’s "remaining functions were discontinued or absorbed into the State Department as part of a reorganization finalized in July," Fox News reported.

Over on X (formerly Twitter), a single photo of Rubio from a White House meeting has been repurposed into a viral “realizing” meme, with users joking that his expanding list of responsibilities makes him the administration’s go-to guy for just about any role imaginable.

Users began posting AI-generated photos of Rubio in fictional power positions, turning him into the shah of Iran, the president of Venezuela, and even the manager of Manchester United.

Instead of swatting it away, Rubio has played along. Last week, he posted on X that he wouldn’t be throwing his hat into the ring for two very different openings, the Miami Dolphins’ vacant head coach or general manager jobs.

“While you never know what the future may bring, right now my focus must remain on global events and also the precious archives of the United States of America,” Rubio wrote. 

Trump turns the heat on Cuba

The timing of Trump’s Cuba joke wasn’t random. It landed just as the White House was dialing up pressure on Havana and cutting off the fuel that keeps its lights on.

Trump has urged Cuba to “make a deal” or face consequences, warning that “the flow of Venezuelan oil and money would now stop.”

That threat follows the well-documented January 3 raid in Caracas, when US forces seized Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro, setting off a chain reaction across the region. 

Venezuela has been a longtime ally of Cuba and is believed to ship around 35,000 barrels of oil a day to the island, which is a lifeline for its fragile energy system.

The Trump administration has now begun intercepting that flow. On Friday, the US seized a fifth oil tanker it said was carrying sanctioned Venezuelan oil.

As a result, Cuba’s already fragile fuel and electricity situation has taken another hit.

Trump warns of consequences, Cuba fires back

Trump spelled out his stance on Cuba in a rather blunt Truth Social post.

“Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of OIL and MONEY from Venezuela. In return, Cuba provided ‘Security Services’ for the last two Venezuelan dictators, BUT NOT ANYMORE!” the President wrote on Sunday. “THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA - ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”

Trump did not specify what that deal would look like or what would happen if Cuba refused. But Havana didn’t take the warning quietly.

Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez said the island nation had "the absolute right to import fuel" from any willing exporter, "without interference or subordination to the unilateral coercive measures of the United States.” He added that, unlike Washington, Cuba does not lend itself to “blackmail or military coercion against other States."

Meanwhile, Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel declared, "No one dictates what we do."