Washington | President Donald Trump has joked that the US Navy will take on Cuba on the way home from Iran.

"Cuba's got problems," Trump said in one of several digressions in his Friday evening speech before the non-profit Forum Club of the Palm Beaches.

"On the way back from Iran, we'll have one of our big, maybe the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier - the biggest in the world - we'll have that come in, stop about 100 yards offshore, and they'll say, 'Thank you very much. We give up'," he said.

The Trump administration is in the midst of a monthslong campaign to press the Cuban government to make dramatic reforms.

All the while, Trump has repeatedly threatened that the US could take military action against the island to get what he wants.