I get why Marco Rubio doesn't like the regime; I don't like them either. But I can't understand why he's willing to impose so much suffering on the Cuban people. "We destroyed a country to save it." "Then what?" "Well, we destroyed the country, that has to count for something."
I can only speculate, but I suspect none of these guys, from the orange man on down through Rubes, care one iota about people as we understand it. Cuba, like Venezuela, like Iran, etc.. are just abstractions to them. A boardgame. The real world does not intrude because it can not. Their bubble is filled with people selected for their physical appearance and loyalty, not their expertise or interest in facts.
“Just how much more foreign policy chaos” that they can unleash? I don’t think Cuba is the end of it. I truly believe they could potentially end the entire world order as we know it before this stops.
On April 10, a US State Department delegation landed in Havana and talked with the Cuban government. Trump wants over 500,000 Cuban immigrants to be repatriated back to Cuba and it's a sticking point. Not one media outlet is or has mentioned it.
7-10 days later, it did get reported in US media, mostly from US sources. This, from al-Jazeera, is the most detailed report my search found, including Cuban sources.
What many of us who don't have a professional engagement with this issue wonder is, why doesn't the USA its decades-long sanctions and see what Cuba can do for itself?
Several quoted commenters in the article excerpts have clear cause to be prejudiced. Growing up in Canada, I got a negative but (I believe) less biased view of the mess and the reasons for it. One thing is clear: whether or not Cuba is frozen in a moment in history, the USA certainly is, and determined to lock Cuba in with itself.
Not mentioned in this article is the indisputable fact that Cuba has been the target of a US-led embargo and sanction regime since 1960 (!), ffs. I mean, the country has been starved of investment capital for decades, thanks to American pressure through dollar-based banking systems...those oft-photographed GM and Ford cars from the '50s aren't just a quaint tourist attraction, but rather a stark indictment of economic and financial impoverishment deliberately imposed upon a country as punishment for a socialist revolution, later turned authoritarian from necessity.
So now trump wants a "reformist" government, friendly to US capital — including, no doubt, several trump-"branded" hotels — under the tutelage of the US government and/or the Marines? Oh, spiffy, just spiffy...what can possibly go wrong?
On the fuel shortage: yes, Cuba's energy minister acknowledged the country has run out of diesel and fuel oil. That's true. But the repressive apparatus keeps running around the clock. As I write this, security forces are actively suppressing protests in Havana and other cities, and the government just launched a new propaganda campaign featuring mass rallies in support of Raúl Castro until his birthday in June 3. Somehow, the regime always finds fuel for repression and propaganda. The scarcity, it seems, is selective.
On the power grid: it has been falling apart since the 1990s. This is not a recent crisis but a decades-long failure of governance. At some point, Fidel Castro launched what he called the "Energy Revolution," a strategy to replace aging thermoelectric plants with distributed generators. Like so many of El Comandante's grand ideas, it failed. What we're seeing today is the compounded result of that failure, left to rot for thirty years.
On peaceful regime change: that is, of course, the ideal scenario. The Cuban government opens dialogue with its own citizens, political and economic reforms follow, and the country moves toward democracy and a market economy that reverses decades of repression and distributed poverty. The Cuban people have actually tried that path, repeatedly, since the 1990s: Proyecto Varela, the 27N movement, the 11J uprising. Each time, the regime's answer has been the same: jail, surveillance, exile. That formula has never changed. It's why so many Cubans — inside and outside the island — are calling for external support to break the deadlock.
On this administration's ability to deliver: as a Cuban, I don't place my faith in any particular U.S. administration. I place it in the Cuban people. There is an enormous reservoir of talent and know-how, in the diaspora and on the island, ready to rebuild the country the moment the opportunity arrives. What I will say is that having Marco Rubio as Secretary of State brings a genuinely different level of understanding of Cuba's specificities to the table. As for Trump's statements on the matter, well, you know the drill. This is the same man who talked about annexing Canada and buying Greenland. My read is that Rubio is the one actually driving the Cuba file.
A tourist can never be sure of what he sees. Nevertheless, on a visit in 2025 the Cubans didn’t appear to be under the control of a frighteningly repressive regime. And there was plenty of private enterprise, just not in the major industrial sectors. You can’t blame all of Cuba’s problems on the embargo. But equally you can’t blame them all on governmental mismanagement.
When Cubans are calling for external support, what would be the best possible scenario? And I am not being snarky either, I genuinely want to know what levers could be pulled by say the EU or Canada or Mexico to let Cuba reach its real destiny. Iranians all wanted external support for regime change but there never seemed to be any consensus on what approach to take and now that they are in a world of hurt, how do they want climb out of this hole? I visited Havana and the resorts before Fidel died and had the same impression you stated on the capabilities of Cubans to fix themselves and their country. Something good absolutely has to come out of 2026 and maybe Cuba will be the start.
This is a genuinely good question, and not an easy one. The honest answer is that the external levers are weaker than most people hope, and the most realistic ones don't run through the capitals you'd expect.
Take them one at a time. The EU has the most formal leverage, the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement, which is the lever closest to actually being pulled. Kaja Kallas confirmed last week that the PDCA is under review, the Parliament already voted in January to move toward suspension, and there's a binding vote coming in June. However, suspending it pressures the regime and cuts EU funding to state structures. It doesn't build anything. It's a stick, not a bridge.
Canada, meanwhile, has essentially no leverage and never has had. Its only real value would be as a mediator. Ottawa used to be one of the few Western governments Havana still trusted and that Washington will still talk to, which is not nothing in a frozen US-Cuba standoff, but it's a convening role, not a deciding one.
Finally, Mexico, which on paper should matter most, is currently an ally of the Cuban government and unwilling to voice any criticism, so as a lever it's effectively offline.
That's the uncomfortable map: the actor with the most willingness (the EU) has mostly punitive tools, the one with diplomatic standing (Canada) has no weight, and the one with regional weight (Mexico) won't use it.
Which brings me to the poll you may have seen: over half of Cubans on the island saying they'd welcome a US military intervention, while at the same time insisting on independence and sovereignty. It looks like a contradiction. It isn't, really. It's the logic of people who have run out of road.
When every external actor that should help either won't or can't, and the internal situation keeps degrading, "let the one power that could actually break the deadlock do it" stops being a principle and becomes a survival calculation. They're not abandoning sovereignty, they're saying the status quo is already costing them their lives, and they'll sort out the principles afterward. That's despair speaking, not ideology.
On the intervention itself, there's no single scenario, but a lot of them, and they range from quick to catastrophic. At the better end, the elite reads the writing on the wall and the Communist-military leadership simply leaves — exile in Russia, China, or another ally — or mid-rank officers decide they won't burn their own conscripts for the men at the top and move to save the institution by steering a transition. At the worse end, you get a protracted conflict: armed resistance spreading across an island already in ruins, and a slide into chaos that helps no one.
But here's the part worth holding onto: none of this is fated. The regime can foreclose every one of those scenarios, including the bloody ones, by doing the thing it has refused to do. This is, negotiate seriously with its own people and undertake the political and economic reforms the country desperately needs. That off-ramp is open right now. Whether anything good comes out of 2026 depends far less on what the EU or Canada or Washington does, and far more on whether Havana decides to walk through it.
You've touched on all the thought topics that had run through my brain. It would be such a breakthrough if there could be one country such as Cuba that could work its way out of desperate circumstances using largely peaceful means rather than violence. As a Canadian, I was hoping that our new regime could have had a serious sit-down with Cuba and provide the emotional and practical support that could have convinced the Cuban regime to consider the people of Cuba before personal survival. I suspect that an international peace keeping and nation stabilization force would be easy to assemble under conditions set by the Cuban regime - if they would only ask.
With Cuban-Americans leading the charge the agenda is revenge not salvation. The people of Cuba are the real pawns of this tragic game played over lost dreams and living nightmares.
As with Iran and the JCPOA, Obama tried to deal with Cuba rationally, opening diplomatic relations and normalizing trade as best he could. But Trump simply doesn't understand seduction.
Note to use of the word I by Trump. I might take Cuba. There’s no we. The despot decides everything, not the people of the country. The legislature does not matter. The judiciary does not matter. The despot owns everything and decides everything, and if he wants to take something, he takes it. To anyone who still supports Trump, I ask you, this is what the United States of America was founded for? Is this how you want to betray the founding fathers?
It's more than hackles being raised by actions in Latin America. All but the most desperate Atlanticists (Rutte, Blair maybe a handful of others) have written the US off as a legitimate participant in the global legal order. As with Russia and Putin, they are trying to disengage as quickly as they can, while minimising costs. Protesting about Cuba doesn't help in this process.
I think it possible that the US could forcibly change the regime without too many disasters in the very short term. But I reckon you can bet the farm that the reconstruction process would be a disaster. That's very hard to do and if there's any hint of this administration being merely bad rather than grossly incompetent in foreign affairs....well I haven't seen any.
I'm totally open to the likelihood that Cubans largely consider their government a failure. But there is such a thing as Latin American nationalism and anti-imperialism. Sure, Cubans want our stuff. Sure, plenty of Miami Cubans want to take back what they've lost. But I can't imagine a passive or peaceful transition.
The plan seems fairly straightforward: blockade the country into starvation and wait for the peasants to revolt and start hanging Communists from the lampposts.
I could almost support an effort to foster pro-democratic regime change in Cuba but after reading that Trump & Netanyahu wanted to install Ahmedinejad in Iran, forget it. I'm out. How crazy does it get?
I get why Marco Rubio doesn't like the regime; I don't like them either. But I can't understand why he's willing to impose so much suffering on the Cuban people. "We destroyed a country to save it." "Then what?" "Well, we destroyed the country, that has to count for something."
I can only speculate, but I suspect none of these guys, from the orange man on down through Rubes, care one iota about people as we understand it. Cuba, like Venezuela, like Iran, etc.. are just abstractions to them. A boardgame. The real world does not intrude because it can not. Their bubble is filled with people selected for their physical appearance and loyalty, not their expertise or interest in facts.
“Just how much more foreign policy chaos” that they can unleash? I don’t think Cuba is the end of it. I truly believe they could potentially end the entire world order as we know it before this stops.
Dismally correct.
On April 10, a US State Department delegation landed in Havana and talked with the Cuban government. Trump wants over 500,000 Cuban immigrants to be repatriated back to Cuba and it's a sticking point. Not one media outlet is or has mentioned it.
7-10 days later, it did get reported in US media, mostly from US sources. This, from al-Jazeera, is the most detailed report my search found, including Cuban sources.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/21/cuba-confirms-meeting-with-us-official-wants-end-to-trumps-energy-blockade
Thank you
What many of us who don't have a professional engagement with this issue wonder is, why doesn't the USA its decades-long sanctions and see what Cuba can do for itself?
Several quoted commenters in the article excerpts have clear cause to be prejudiced. Growing up in Canada, I got a negative but (I believe) less biased view of the mess and the reasons for it. One thing is clear: whether or not Cuba is frozen in a moment in history, the USA certainly is, and determined to lock Cuba in with itself.
Not mentioned in this article is the indisputable fact that Cuba has been the target of a US-led embargo and sanction regime since 1960 (!), ffs. I mean, the country has been starved of investment capital for decades, thanks to American pressure through dollar-based banking systems...those oft-photographed GM and Ford cars from the '50s aren't just a quaint tourist attraction, but rather a stark indictment of economic and financial impoverishment deliberately imposed upon a country as punishment for a socialist revolution, later turned authoritarian from necessity.
So now trump wants a "reformist" government, friendly to US capital — including, no doubt, several trump-"branded" hotels — under the tutelage of the US government and/or the Marines? Oh, spiffy, just spiffy...what can possibly go wrong?
A few thoughts on some of the points raised here:
On the fuel shortage: yes, Cuba's energy minister acknowledged the country has run out of diesel and fuel oil. That's true. But the repressive apparatus keeps running around the clock. As I write this, security forces are actively suppressing protests in Havana and other cities, and the government just launched a new propaganda campaign featuring mass rallies in support of Raúl Castro until his birthday in June 3. Somehow, the regime always finds fuel for repression and propaganda. The scarcity, it seems, is selective.
On the power grid: it has been falling apart since the 1990s. This is not a recent crisis but a decades-long failure of governance. At some point, Fidel Castro launched what he called the "Energy Revolution," a strategy to replace aging thermoelectric plants with distributed generators. Like so many of El Comandante's grand ideas, it failed. What we're seeing today is the compounded result of that failure, left to rot for thirty years.
On peaceful regime change: that is, of course, the ideal scenario. The Cuban government opens dialogue with its own citizens, political and economic reforms follow, and the country moves toward democracy and a market economy that reverses decades of repression and distributed poverty. The Cuban people have actually tried that path, repeatedly, since the 1990s: Proyecto Varela, the 27N movement, the 11J uprising. Each time, the regime's answer has been the same: jail, surveillance, exile. That formula has never changed. It's why so many Cubans — inside and outside the island — are calling for external support to break the deadlock.
On this administration's ability to deliver: as a Cuban, I don't place my faith in any particular U.S. administration. I place it in the Cuban people. There is an enormous reservoir of talent and know-how, in the diaspora and on the island, ready to rebuild the country the moment the opportunity arrives. What I will say is that having Marco Rubio as Secretary of State brings a genuinely different level of understanding of Cuba's specificities to the table. As for Trump's statements on the matter, well, you know the drill. This is the same man who talked about annexing Canada and buying Greenland. My read is that Rubio is the one actually driving the Cuba file.
A tourist can never be sure of what he sees. Nevertheless, on a visit in 2025 the Cubans didn’t appear to be under the control of a frighteningly repressive regime. And there was plenty of private enterprise, just not in the major industrial sectors. You can’t blame all of Cuba’s problems on the embargo. But equally you can’t blame them all on governmental mismanagement.
When Cubans are calling for external support, what would be the best possible scenario? And I am not being snarky either, I genuinely want to know what levers could be pulled by say the EU or Canada or Mexico to let Cuba reach its real destiny. Iranians all wanted external support for regime change but there never seemed to be any consensus on what approach to take and now that they are in a world of hurt, how do they want climb out of this hole? I visited Havana and the resorts before Fidel died and had the same impression you stated on the capabilities of Cubans to fix themselves and their country. Something good absolutely has to come out of 2026 and maybe Cuba will be the start.
Hello Kary, thanks for asking.
This is a genuinely good question, and not an easy one. The honest answer is that the external levers are weaker than most people hope, and the most realistic ones don't run through the capitals you'd expect.
Take them one at a time. The EU has the most formal leverage, the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement, which is the lever closest to actually being pulled. Kaja Kallas confirmed last week that the PDCA is under review, the Parliament already voted in January to move toward suspension, and there's a binding vote coming in June. However, suspending it pressures the regime and cuts EU funding to state structures. It doesn't build anything. It's a stick, not a bridge.
Canada, meanwhile, has essentially no leverage and never has had. Its only real value would be as a mediator. Ottawa used to be one of the few Western governments Havana still trusted and that Washington will still talk to, which is not nothing in a frozen US-Cuba standoff, but it's a convening role, not a deciding one.
Finally, Mexico, which on paper should matter most, is currently an ally of the Cuban government and unwilling to voice any criticism, so as a lever it's effectively offline.
That's the uncomfortable map: the actor with the most willingness (the EU) has mostly punitive tools, the one with diplomatic standing (Canada) has no weight, and the one with regional weight (Mexico) won't use it.
Which brings me to the poll you may have seen: over half of Cubans on the island saying they'd welcome a US military intervention, while at the same time insisting on independence and sovereignty. It looks like a contradiction. It isn't, really. It's the logic of people who have run out of road.
When every external actor that should help either won't or can't, and the internal situation keeps degrading, "let the one power that could actually break the deadlock do it" stops being a principle and becomes a survival calculation. They're not abandoning sovereignty, they're saying the status quo is already costing them their lives, and they'll sort out the principles afterward. That's despair speaking, not ideology.
On the intervention itself, there's no single scenario, but a lot of them, and they range from quick to catastrophic. At the better end, the elite reads the writing on the wall and the Communist-military leadership simply leaves — exile in Russia, China, or another ally — or mid-rank officers decide they won't burn their own conscripts for the men at the top and move to save the institution by steering a transition. At the worse end, you get a protracted conflict: armed resistance spreading across an island already in ruins, and a slide into chaos that helps no one.
But here's the part worth holding onto: none of this is fated. The regime can foreclose every one of those scenarios, including the bloody ones, by doing the thing it has refused to do. This is, negotiate seriously with its own people and undertake the political and economic reforms the country desperately needs. That off-ramp is open right now. Whether anything good comes out of 2026 depends far less on what the EU or Canada or Washington does, and far more on whether Havana decides to walk through it.
You've touched on all the thought topics that had run through my brain. It would be such a breakthrough if there could be one country such as Cuba that could work its way out of desperate circumstances using largely peaceful means rather than violence. As a Canadian, I was hoping that our new regime could have had a serious sit-down with Cuba and provide the emotional and practical support that could have convinced the Cuban regime to consider the people of Cuba before personal survival. I suspect that an international peace keeping and nation stabilization force would be easy to assemble under conditions set by the Cuban regime - if they would only ask.
I wonder how the Trump administration would cope with another Mariel boatlift…
I'm afraid they'll cope with it the way they cope with alleged drug smugglers. Bombs and bullets.
Straight to Gitmo — do not pass GO, do not collect $200.
A very good assessment sir !
With Cuban-Americans leading the charge the agenda is revenge not salvation. The people of Cuba are the real pawns of this tragic game played over lost dreams and living nightmares.
As with Iran and the JCPOA, Obama tried to deal with Cuba rationally, opening diplomatic relations and normalizing trade as best he could. But Trump simply doesn't understand seduction.
Note to use of the word I by Trump. I might take Cuba. There’s no we. The despot decides everything, not the people of the country. The legislature does not matter. The judiciary does not matter. The despot owns everything and decides everything, and if he wants to take something, he takes it. To anyone who still supports Trump, I ask you, this is what the United States of America was founded for? Is this how you want to betray the founding fathers?
It's more than hackles being raised by actions in Latin America. All but the most desperate Atlanticists (Rutte, Blair maybe a handful of others) have written the US off as a legitimate participant in the global legal order. As with Russia and Putin, they are trying to disengage as quickly as they can, while minimising costs. Protesting about Cuba doesn't help in this process.
I think it possible that the US could forcibly change the regime without too many disasters in the very short term. But I reckon you can bet the farm that the reconstruction process would be a disaster. That's very hard to do and if there's any hint of this administration being merely bad rather than grossly incompetent in foreign affairs....well I haven't seen any.
I'm totally open to the likelihood that Cubans largely consider their government a failure. But there is such a thing as Latin American nationalism and anti-imperialism. Sure, Cubans want our stuff. Sure, plenty of Miami Cubans want to take back what they've lost. But I can't imagine a passive or peaceful transition.
The plan seems fairly straightforward: blockade the country into starvation and wait for the peasants to revolt and start hanging Communists from the lampposts.
I could almost support an effort to foster pro-democratic regime change in Cuba but after reading that Trump & Netanyahu wanted to install Ahmedinejad in Iran, forget it. I'm out. How crazy does it get?