Florida Republican on Cuba killing 4 on speedboat: 'We need the regime to go'

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Florida Republican on Cuba killing 4 on speedboat: ‘We need the regime to go’

Florida Republicans are repeating calls for regime change in Cuba in the wake of the Cuban coast guard killing four people and detaining others who were in a Florida-registered motorboat that Havana said crossed into Cuban territorial waters.

The deadly confrontation adds another layer of volatility between Havana and Washington, amid President Trump’s fuel blockade around the island. Trump imposed the blockade at the end of January to weaken the Cuban communist regime. Last year, Trump designated Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism.

Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), who was born in Cuba, said Trump’s policies have brought the Cuban regime to the closest point of collapse in its 67 years.

“The regime is in its weakest position. We have the right president and we have the right secretary of State and the right policies in place in order to make it happen,” Gimenez said on Fox News.

“Actually I’ve been here for over 65 years. This is, you know, the closest we’ve been to seeing a free Cuba and for me it can’t happen soon enough.”

Gimenez, who is also a member of the House Homeland Security and Armed Services committees, said he wants to know “exactly what happened” with the Cuban coast guard.

On Wednesday, the Cuban coast guard said it confronted a Florida-registered speedboat and encountered armed individuals who opened fire, describing them as terrorists. Cuba said four people were killed and six others were detained.

Gimenez demanded access to the individuals taken into custody. Gimenez described the individuals as Americans, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Wednesday that it’s not yet clear if they are U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

Gimenez said Cuban officials view any Cuban diaspora as a Cuban national, regardless of other citizenship. He said the boat the Cuban coast guard confronted was a 24-foot open fisherman vessel with a 1,300 horsepower engine.

“The original story was they were transporting human smuggling and now they’re terrorists. They are changing their story and we need to get to the bottom of it,” he said of Cuban officials.

Gimenez raised the prospect that Cuba could use the six detained individuals as leverage in the standoff with the U.S.

Other prominent Florida Republicans have called for regime change in Cuba.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who is running for governor, posted on the social platform X that the “Communist Cuban regime must go.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said Cuban leader Raúl Castro should be indicted in a U.S. court and put on trial “for all the Americans he killed.”

Asked by The Hill if Trump should carry out an operation to capture Castro similar to the operation to seize Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on a drug charges warrant, Scott deferred and predicted the Cuban people would eventually topple their government.

“I think ultimately the Cuban people are going to just rise up, because of how bad it is,” he said.

Trump has not laid out his demands for Cuba but said the fuel blockade could usher in regime collapse.

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, is taking the lead on Trump’s policy toward Havana. The Miami Herald reported Thursday that U.S. officials met on the sidelines of a conference in the Caribbean with Raúl Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, grandson and bodyguard to Raúl Castro, considered the de facto leader in Havana.

Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month that the U.S. “would love to see the regime change, it doesn’t mean we’re going to make a change.”

The secretary said that the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Coast Guard are carrying out an independent investigation into what happened with the Cuban coast guard.

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