Marco Rubio drives Trump's Cuba pressure policy

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's role in President Donald Trump's pressure campaign on Cuba reflects a political career shaped by the island and Florida's Cuban exile community.

Rubio, the most powerful Cuban American in the United States government, is described as a leading figure behind Trump's maximum-pressure policy toward Cuba's communist leadership.

Emily Mendrala, senior advisor at the Latin American think tank Dinamica Americas, said Cuba is a legacy issue for Trump and a more personal issue for Rubio.

"For Secretary Rubio, I think it is more personal. He has obviously committed his career to this issue, and has spoken a lot about, and called for democracy in Cuba," Mendrala said during a recent exchange with journalists.

The United States has held Cuba under embargo since 1962. Relations have deteriorated further this year, particularly since the United States ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in January.

Since then, Washington has imposed a de facto oil blockade on Cuba, enacted new sanctions against Cuban companies and officials, and indicted former president Raul Castro, the brother of late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, in a case dating back to 1996.

Rubio has backed sanctions targeting Cuba's military conglomerate GAESA, which the State Department says controls up to 70 percent of the Cuban economy.

On May 20, the day Raul Castro was indicted, Rubio issued a video message in Spanish and called on Cubans to choose a new path. Washington seeks regime change in Cuba but has not publicly named a leader or timetable.

"The biggest problem Cuba has is that the regime is a disaster, their economic model doesn't work, and the people who run the country don't know what the hell they're doing," Rubio told reporters last week during a trip to the Philippines.

Rubio was born in Miami on May 28, 1971, to Cuban parents who had emigrated 15 years earlier. He has never been to Cuba. After studying law, he won his first election in 1998, became speaker of the Florida House of Representatives at 34 and was elected to the US Senate in 2010.

Esteban "Steve" Bovo, the former mayor of majority-Cuban Hialeah in Florida, said Rubio understands "the pain of the Cuban exile" because he is a product of South Florida. "Trying to fill the hope of the Cuban exile is not going to be easy," Bovo said.