Here's a situation you don't see every day: a Florida-registered speedboat, a squad of Cuban border guards, and a gunfight in the open sea. The aftermath has left four people dead, six injured, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio promising that America will "respond appropriately" once it figures out what exactly happened.
The incident went down Wednesday morning about a nautical mile northeast of the El Pino canal near Cayo Falcones. According to Cuba's Interior Ministry, five Cuban border guards approached the speedboat to identify it. The people on the speedboat, the Cuban statement says, opened fire, wounding the commander of the Cuban patrol craft. The border guards returned fire.
The result: four dead on the speedboat, six injured and transferred for emergency care. Cuba's statement is notably sparse on details—it doesn't say who was on the vessel, why it entered Cuban waters, or why it allegedly shot first. That leaves a lot of unanswered questions floating in the Florida Straits.
Enter Secretary Rubio. At a news conference, he made it clear the U.S. government wants answers, and isn't just going to take Cuba's word for it. "We're not going to base our conclusions on what they've told us," Rubio said. "I'm very confident that we will know the full story of what happened here, and we will know it soon. And then, you know, we'll respond appropriately based on what that information tells."
He also highlighted how bizarre the whole event is. "It is highly unusual to see shootouts in open sea like that, it's not something that happens every day, it's something frankly that hasn't happened with Cuba in a very long time," Rubio told reporters. He confirmed no U.S. government personnel were involved and said the American Embassy in Havana is working to gain access to survivors to determine if any were American citizens or lawful permanent residents.
Rubio didn't stop at the incident itself. He took the opportunity to critique Cuba's economic model, saying, "The reason why things are as bad as they are is because they have an economic model that does not exist," referencing the island's deepening crisis.
The call for answers is bipartisan, at least in Florida. Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), whose district includes Key West, also called for an investigation to determine the citizenship of any victims.
This maritime drama isn't happening in a vacuum. It's playing out in the Florida Straits, the roughly 90-mile (145-kilometer) gap that separates Cuba and the United States. It's a corridor that's been heavily monitored for decades due to migration and drug-trafficking attempts.
More importantly, it's happening at a time when U.S.-Cuba relations have taken a sharp turn for the worse. In late January, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency tied to what he called Cuban "threats" and signed an order threatening tariffs on countries supplying oil to Cuba. It's part of escalating pressure as the island nation deals with fuel shortages and blackouts.
So, you have a mysterious shootout at sea, a lack of clear facts, and a backdrop of rising geopolitical tension. The U.S. wants to talk to survivors and piece the story together. Once it does, Rubio says, there will be a response. What that response looks like depends entirely on what the investigation finds. For now, it's a waiting game, with four lives lost and a lot of questions still unanswered.
