President Trump has put Cuba's communist government on notice, saying it is "not going to last much longer" and calling the country a failed state. He said the situation will "definitely" be resolved within two and a half years, and that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose parents were from Cuba, is looking at it very closely. Trump said the administration would first finish with Iran and then maybe turn to Cuba, adding that people would be going back to the island "very soon" and pointing to what the US did in Venezuela. It's not the first time he's said this: in March he predicted Cuba would "fall pretty soon" and said he would put Rubio on the case, and reports have described backchannel talks between Rubio and a grandson of Raúl Castro. Trump has also floated a "friendly takeover" of the island, while Rubio has said Cuba's recent economic changes are "not dramatic enough."

What "resolved" would actually mean is still unclear, since neither man has laid out a public plan. Cuba is already in a deep economic crisis, with severe food, electricity and fuel shortages, yet its government insists that the regime is going nowhere. Analysts also point out that predictions of Cuba's collapse have been made for decades and that the island has survived more than half a century of the US embargo and other pressure. Many Cuban Americans, especially in Florida, welcome a tougher line, while critics warn that more pressure may hurt ordinary Cubans without changing who governs. For now, the timeline is a promise, and whether it holds depends on events that neither Washington nor Havana fully controls.