TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Gov. Ron DeSantis reacted Thursday to the reverberations of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy on Florida, rejecting a gas tax pause amid the Middle East war and warning about a possible mass exodus out of Cuba.
DeSantis expressed deep skepticism about slashing the state’s gas tax to counter a rise in fuel prices amid the conflict with Iran. AAA, which tracks gas prices, said current per gallon prices in the Sunshine State are nearly $1 higher than they were a year ago.
The Republican governor successfully pushed for a gas tax holiday back in 2022, when former President Joe Biden was in office and DeSantis was seeking a second term. Democrats in the Florida Legislature last week called for a temporary suspension of the current roughly 25 cents per gallon in state and local fuel taxes. But DeSantis said even if the state does suspend gas taxes, fluctuations in oil prices may erase any potential savings for motorists.
“Our ability to influence fuel prices are really marginal,” DeSantis said during a bill signing ceremony in Bradenton. “Sometimes the prices get raised so the consumer doesn’t see any difference. If the gas is $4 a gallon, whether you are paying tax or not, if you are paying $4 that’s what people notice, right? And I think when we did it in the past … I don’t think the consumer really felt relief.”
Florida legislators wrapped up their annual session last week but are expected to return to Tallahassee in mid-April after failing to pass a new budget. Lawmakers could theoretically consider a gas tax holiday along with other budget-related measures.
DeSantis also talked briefly about the situation in Cuba, which has undergone a severe economic crisis after the U.S. cut off oil supplies to the Communist island nation.
The governor, who said “I don’t know what’s going to happen in Cuba,” added: If “there is more turbulence there, there could potentially be an exodus out of Cuba.”
“We don’t think that that is acceptable,” DeSantis went on. “We think they need to fix Cuba there by getting a new government in Cuba. … But we don’t want to see a massive armada of people showing up on the shores of the Florida Keys. And so we are working on those contingencies. And the Trump administration agrees with us.”
Trump earlier this week said, "I think Cuba sees the end,” and that they are a “very weakened nation,” while Cuba’s president last week acknowledged publicly that there have been talks between Cuba and the United States.
Florida, which is just 90 miles away from Cuba, is home to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose family came from Cuba, as well as a large Cuban American population including families that fled the country after Fidel Castro took power. Florida also saw a large influx of Cuban migrants in 1980.
DeSantis suggested the Trump administration would work with state authorities to make sure people do not come to Florida.
“They do not want to see movement from Cuba to Florida,” the governor said of the Turmp administration. “They would rather see people in Florida go help … hopefully get a new government going. And so we’re going to be involved with that and protecting our coastlines from that.”
DeSantis said just a change in Cuba's leadership would not be sufficient — that the communist government needs to be replaced. He also expressed skepticism over reports the Cuban government was planning to allow Cuban exiles to invest in companies in Cuba.
“People are not going to want to invest in that island under these current circumstances,” DeSantis said. “But all that being said, we do have a chance to see, after many, many decades, a positive change in Cuba. It's not an easy thing. It's probably not going to be super orderly. I don't know, and I don't know what the Trump administration's role is going to be in that, but I do know that country has basically been in a communist prison for a long time.”
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