STORY: U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday (June 4) that Cuba is a "failed nation" and said the U.S. wants it to be a "nicely run country" after he was asked whether Washington's sanctions on Havana was meant to accelerate its collapse.

DESCRIPCIÓN DE IMÁGENES

Trump says Cuba is a 'failed nation' after US sanctions

VIDEO SHOWS: SOUNDBITES FROM U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP

RESENDING WITH COMPLETE SCRIPT

SHOWS: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (JUNE 4, 2026) (UNRESTRICTED POOL – Access all)

1. U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP SPEAKING AT DESK IN OVAL OFFICE

2. (SOUNDBITE) (English) JOURNALIST ASKING:

“On Cuba, are your sanctions on Cuba meant to accelerate its collapse?”

3. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

“No, it's just, we just want them to be a nicely run country that can feed its people. Look, it's a failed nation. Without Venezuela, you know Venezuela, because it has such wealth in the ground. Mostly in the ground. But Venezuela took care of them for years, and they took care of Venezuela. They were like the bodyguards when we went in and, burst into their country, the Venezuelans, were guarding Maduro and everybody else, it was mostly I mean, the soldiers were... in that case, there were a lot, we had a lot of Cubans [who] were guarding. The Cubans were the guards and they’re good soldiers. But the country's starving and it's got no energy. It's got no oil, it's got no money, it's got nothing. It's got a beautiful piece of land. You could have beautiful resorts. Doesn't have oil. But, Venezuela was giving them the money to survive. And now, you know, the money is, I guess you could say is coming to us and is going to Venezuela. Venezuela has been an amazing thing because we've paid for the cost of the attack many, many times over. And it's been a long time since you've heard of it.”

4. (SOUNDBITE) (English) JOURNALIST ASKING:

“Based on everything you just laid out. Do you think that Cuba is close to collapsing?”

5. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

“It sort of collapsed. And we're going to handle that as soon as we've finished. I'd like to do one thing at a time, and we'll take care of, the Islamic Republic of Iran. And as soon as that's done, on our way back, we'll just make a little brief stop on it. We'll take care of it. We want to help them out. Look, we have a lot of people that voted for Trump, whether they did or not, it didn't matter. But I had 95% of the Cubans voted for me. They're unbelievable people. They're energetic. They're entrepreneurial. You know, some of the richest people in Miami are Cuban. They're unbelievable. And, I'm going to take good care of them. I'm going to let them go back to their land. They want to be back with family. You know, they have a lot of family over there. They've been treated very badly by Cuba. But we're going to treat Cuba well, and we're going to let our people go back and let them invest in Cuba if they'd like. So we have some, we have some very good plans for Cuba. I think, you know, we have to get rid of... the regime, was very tough, very nasty. The difference is now they don't have money coming in. They had a lot of money coming in from Venezuela. They don't have any money coming. They had oil coming in, and they had money coming in. But we're going to take care of Cuba.”

6. MEDIA BEING DISMISSED FROM OVAL OFFICE