Rubio offers Cubans “new path” in video address as US prepares to impeach Raúl Castro

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke Wednesday directly to the Cuban people in a video recorded in Spanish, criticizing the country’s officials for corruption and offering a “new path,” including a proposed influx of $100 million in food and medicine. The message came as American officials I am preparing to announce expected the impeachment of former President Raúl Castro.

Rubio, the son of Cuban parents who immigrated to Florida two years before Fidel Castro took power, heads Grupo de Administración Empresarial SA, or GAESA, a politically connected Cuban business organization that Rubio says has $18 billion in assets and controls 70% of the economy.

“They benefit from hotels, construction, banks, stores and even the money your relatives send you from the US everything, everything goes through their hands,” said Rubio, translated from Spanish. “From those remittances they keep a percentage, but from GAESA’s profit nothing goes to you.”

Cuba is currently facing the problem of power outages that affect most of the country as the electricity grid that was already moving has crashed because the US has blocked oil from entering the country since January. Cuba used to get oil from Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, but he was removed from power by the US military in January and charged with drug trafficking.

“The reason you are forced to live 22 hours a day without electricity is not because of the US oil ’embargo’ As you know, better than anyone, you have been suffering from blackouts for years,” Rubio said. “The real reason you don’t have electricity, fuel, and food is because those who control your country have stolen billions of dollars, but nothing has been used to help the people.”

Rubio said the provision of $100 million in aid supplies, one the US has done it beforeit should be distributed to the Cuban people through the Catholic Church or other charitable organizations to avoid being “stolen by GAESA to be sold in one of their stores.”

“President Trump is offering a new relationship between the US and Cuba,” Rubio said in the video. “But it must be up to you, the Cuban people, not GAESA.”

Rubio also talked about ending Communism in the country, which has been in power for 67 years.

“Today in Cuba, only those who are close to the elites of GAESA or who are part of it can have profitable businesses,” Rubio told the Cuban people. “But President Trump offers a new path between the US and a new Cuba.”

“A new Cuba where you, the average Cuban, not just GAESA, can own a gas station or a clothing store, or a restaurant,” he added.

The comments come on the same day Rául Castro, 94, was expected to be indicted by the US government, sources with knowledge of the investigation told CBS News.

The case against Castro, who is the brother of longtime dictator Fidel Castro, is related to Cuba shooting down two small planes run by the humanitarian group Brothers to the Rescue in 1996, US officials told CBS News earlier this month.

Raúl Castro officially dropped as the leader of the Communist Party of Cuba in 2021, but he is still widely seen as one of the most powerful people in the country. Miguel Díaz-Canel is the current president of Cuba and leader of the Communist Party.