Regime Change In Cuba?
Sources
AP and Reuters. “Cuba to Introduce Plan to Address Fuel Shortage amid US Blockade.” Al Jazeera. Accessed February 6, 2026. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/2/5/cuba-to-introduce-plan-to-address-fuel-shortage-amid-us-blockade.
Beaumont, Peter. “Doge Employee Allegedly Has History of Misogyny, Racism and Violent Outbursts.” US News. The Guardian, April 1, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/doge-employee-misogyny-racism-violence.
Coto. “US Announces $6M in Aid for Cuba as Island’s Leader Accuses It of Imposing an ‘Energy Blockade.’” AP News, February 5, 2026. https://apnews.com/article/us-cuba-aid-melissa-trump-diaz-canel-636551892a2f59f43b657f1e71997b0b.
Gamez Torres, Nora. “Cuba Slams Hezbollah Chief’s Killing Even as It Tries to Get off Terrorism-Sponsor List.” Miami Herald, October 1, 2024. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article293315479.html.
Gamez Torres, Nora. “With Cuba’s Economy in Tailspin, Its Leader Makes Big Bet on Putin during Kremlin Visit.” Miami Herald, May 17, 2024. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article288531290.html.
Nicoll, Ruaridh. “Cuba Open to Talks with US ‘without Pressure’ after Months of Trump Threats.” World News. The Guardian, February 5, 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/05/trump-cuba-us-talks.
Oré, Diego. “Exclusive: Mexico Seeking Way to Send Fuel to Cuba without Being Hit by US Tariffs, Sources Say.” Energy. Reuters, February 5, 2026. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/mexico-seeking-way-to-send-fuel-cuba-without-being-hit-by-us-tariffs-sources-say-2026-02-05/.
Suarez, John. “Cuba’s Dictatorship Has a Serious Problem with Jews.” The Hill, October 25, 2023. https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4270996-cubas-dictatorship-has-a-serious-problem-with-jews/.
Trump, Donald. “Addressing Threats to the United States by the Government of Cuba.” The White House, January 29, 2026. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/01/addressing-threats-to-the-united-states-by-the-government-of-cuba/.
Will the US Force Regime Change in Cuba? The Take. Al Jazeera, February 3, 2026.https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-take/id1438817292.
Transcript
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Hi it’s Friday, February 6th, 2026, you’re tuned into Why, America? I’m your lawyer friend Leeja Miller in Minneapolis. Much of my time, attention, and coverage lately has been focused on the horrors happening all around me here in Minneapolis. And for good reason. Today, however, I’m looking to a bit of foreign policy, because while the clear and prolific human rights abuses being committed by the regime in Minnesota are worthy of our attention, there are other horrors unfolding elsewhere. And frankly it’s a bit of escapism for me to be thinking about horrors somewhere NOT on my literal doorstep. So today we’re talking about Cuba. After the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last month, Cuba has been seen as next on Trump’s to do list of foreign aggression. As predicted, last week Trump issued an executive order declaring that Cuba poses a national emergency in the United States. If that sounds like wild and crazy what do you mean the country of Cuba is a national emergency in the US you would be right!! We’ll cover some of the most bat shit parts of that executive order. But now Cuba faces a growing humanitarian crisis, as the Venezuelan oil it depended on has dried up and Trump has threatened sanctions on countries like Mexico that attempt to import any oil to Cuba. Country-wide blackouts, in a country that already suffered from extensive blackouts, have created what the UN has deemed a potential humanitarian crisis on the island. Today we’re talking about why this matters, why Trump even gives a shit about Cuba, the Marco Rubio of it all, and how this tiny island nation has managed to be a thorn in the side of the most powerful country on earth for over half a century.
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Fun fact about me is I have dual degrees in political science and Latin American studies. As part of that program I had the opportunity to visit Cuba back in 2012. Here is some rare photo evidence of me at 19 on the island. Now Cuba is incredibly complex and controversial both for people who live on the island as well as for the US and other international governments and for the millions of people who make up the Cuban diaspora around the world. The largest group of them live in Miami, Florida, and Marco Rubio is a member of that diaspora community. So a single video on Cuba is not going to properly sum up all there is to say about the country, and my perspective on the island isn’t the only or the correct one. To be honest with you I was drawn to a degree in Latin American studies as a white teen from the midwest because in high school Spanish class I discovered that Che Guevara was hot. And I stand by that, honestly, but my opinion of him and the Cuban revolution and Cuba as a whole OBVIOUSLY is much more complex than that but I also say that because there are a lot of armchair leftists in comments sections across the internet with Che Guevara as their profile picture who know very little about Guevara or the Cuban revolution so I think that is also a part of the complexity of the story of Cuba–the legend of it all. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
When I visited Cuba 14 years ago, what I encountered was an island filled with people many of whom felt a lot of pride for their culture, their history, and their country–but with mixed feelings about their government. I found cities filled with beautiful Spanish-colonial architecture that was built when Spain colonized the island and has since fallen into disrepair due to lack of resources. After the revolution, when the US placed a blockade on Cuba, the island turned to the Soviet Union for support and resources. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba has struggled to maintain its infrastructure and economy, which is a common theme among underdeveloped countries whose resources were extracted and the wealth sent abroad as opposed to enriching the inhabitants of the island itself. Pick a formerly colonized country in the global south and it's not hard to find the ways the country is still struggling because of its previous colonization. That’s not to say the island’s economic struggles can’t also be blamed on the post-revolutionary government which has dealt with its fair share of corruption FOR SURE, but I think it’s really common to see one side (the US) say that the economic struggles are purely the fault of the communist government and the other side (Cuba) say that the economic struggles are purely the fault of the US blockade. But the reality is more complicated than that.
When I visited in 2012, Havana was incredibly overpopulated, with many people shoved into old dilapidated buildings in a city that was built to house a population half as large. I found a country that was so dependent on its tourist industry that I met a man selling used books in Old Havana who had a degree in mechanical engineering but could make more money selling me a used copy of 100 Years of Solitude than he could in a week working as a mechanical engineer. We spent a few days at an all inclusive resort–a luxury but also part of our studies of the impact of tourism on the island, of the racialized lines where the whiter staff worked the front desk and the darker skinned staff worked as cooks or as nightly entertainment. I met a woman who had 4 degrees but was able to earn a better living making sandwiches at the resort. And by better living I don’t mean she was living in the lap of luxury, I just mean a better living than the $20 or so US dollars PER MONTH that continues to this day to be the average monthly salary in Cuba. I saw a country that invested heavily in higher education–some of the best doctors on the planet were trained in Cuba–but failed to provide employment, leading to extensive brain drain–highly trained people leaving the island to find work elsewhere.
The Cuban diaspora–the people and their descendants who have left Cuba, especially since the revolution in the late 1950s–is as complex as the country itself. Prior to the revolution, Cuba, especially Havana, was the capitalist playground of the rich and famous from the United States. But, obviously, there was a massive, successful revolution there for a reason. The country was run by a violent military dictatorship. Wealth inequality was rampant–people saw the rich and powerful come enjoy the wealth the country had to offer, wealth that was created on the back of extractive agricultural practices and slave labor, while the masses benefitted very little from that wealth. When the revolution came, the wealthy, who were often white European immigrants to Cuba from Spain, were some of the first to flee the island, and many headed for Miami, only 90 miles away from Cuba. But others fled, too, especially in the years after the revolution, when many people found that the promises made by the revolution’s leaders–prosperity for the poor, equality, a new Cuba–didn’t exactly pan out. There’s a great book called Oye Loca about the Mariel Boatlift, a massive migration of 125,000 Cubans in 1980 who crossed the 90 miles of ocean between Cuba and Florida on makeshift, overcrowded boats. Many of those who fled were LGBTQ Cubans who were attempting to escape the repressive homophobic Cuban government. What they found in Miami–a population of Cubans who were also mostly conservative–wasn’t much better. Oye Loca traces that story from Cuba to Miami for this population of queer Cubans. Anyway so even within the diaspora community in Miami, feelings about Cuba are incredibly complex. And the fact that Marco Rubio, the current Secretary of State, is from that diaspora community, is important.
In a recent episode of Al Jazeera’s podcast The Take they interviewed Ed Augustin, an independent journalist based in Cuba. Having these voices from inside Cuba is super important because you can’t necessarily trust the information coming from official channels of the Cuban government but you also can’t necessarily trust the information coming from official channels of the US government either. We’ve reached a point in US-Cuban diplomatic relations where it's like the two spidermans pointing at each other. In fact, Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel held a rare two-hour press conference this week announcing intentions to roll out a plan to deal with the US and the current economic collapse in the country. During the press conference, he only allowed a handful of news media in, excluding major news organizations like the Associated Press and only accepted questions from a handful of approved reporters. Sounds really familiar…
Anyway, Augustin the independent reporter in Cuba filled in the gaps for me between my experience in Cuba 14 years ago and the realities on the island today. By most measures it seems to be much worse. Whereas in 2012, Cuba had extensive amounts of oil imports from Venezuela, that had dwindled even in the months leading up to Maduro’s capture, to the point where most people on the island of Cuba are without power most of the time. The average Cuban had maybe 3 hours of electricity access per day. The rest of the time was blackouts. And that was BEFORE Maduro was captured and Venezuelan oil completely stopped flowing to the island. Mexico had filled in some of the need and actually became a bigger supplier of oil to the island than Venezuela was. And now that supply has dwindled because of threatened sanctions against Mexico by the Trump regime. Cuba’s healthcare system, one of the best in the world back in 2012, has also been crumbling. Many Cubans still living in Cuba question the legitimacy of the government, the government in Cuba is incredibly unpopular because of the current economic situation. But at the same time, as Augustin reports, the capture of Maduro–seen by many on the island as a kidnapping of a head of state–is seen by many Cubans as a clear sign that Cuba is next on the list of targets for the Trump regime, and so there is also a sense of unity in opposing US intervention into the island. That’s, of course, never stopped the US before. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio has openly said he would like to see regime change and the glory of capitalism brought back to Cuba. So when we talk about what’s coming out of the White House about Cuba and even Venezuela, just know that it has Marco Rubio’s fingerprints all over it.
So what is the White House saying? On January 29th, Trump issued an executive order declaring that quote “the policies, practices, and actions of the Government of Cuba constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” Specifically, the executive order says Cuba’s dangerous actions include aligning itself with terrorist groups and such malign actors as The Government of Russia–ignore the fact that Trump is best friends with Valdimir Putin, I guess? But also China, Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah, the usual suspects. And the accusations against Cuba follow a similar pattern that the Trump regime has used to target protestors and dissidents on US soil. Specifically, the executive order claims that quote “Cuba welcomes transnational terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, creating a safe environment for these malign groups so that these transnational terrorist groups can build economic, cultural, and security ties throughout the region and attempt to destabilize the Western Hemisphere, including the United States.” Reporting from on the ground in Cuba indicates that there are not, as Trump would have you believe, just Hamas terrorists running around forming covert ties and operations. I think a lot of this has to do with Israel. Immediately after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, Cuba released a formal statement blaming Israel and its accomplice, the US, for the violence. Last year, a delegation from Hamas met with the Cuban Ambassador in Lebanon, after which the ambassador recognized quote “the legitimate right of the Palestinians to defend their land… The Palestinians are fighting for a just cause.” Fidel Castro famously supported the creation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization n 1965, and in 1979 he is quoted as saying “From the bottom of our heart, we repudiated the merciless persecution and genocide that the Nazis once visited on the Jews. But there is nothing in recent history that parallels it more than the dispossession, persecution and genocide that imperialism and Zionism are currently practicing against the Palestinian people.” Throughout the last half century, Cuba has repeatedly aligned itself with Palestine and against Israel including going as far as to lend military support to Palestine during various wars and hostilities with Israel.
In recent years, Cuban president Diaz-Canel has also sided with Russia in its war against Ukraine and with Iran and Hezbollah, a group that is recognized around the world as being a terrorist organization. Cuba was one of few countries that publicly criticized the Israeli killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, in a bombing in Beirut in 2024 that took place in a residential suburb and killed numerous civilians in the process. Again, it’s a complicated balance Cuba is trying to strike–on the one hand trying to ease relations with the United States, its closest and most powerful neighbor, while also forming alliances with countries that are typically seen as US adversaries–Iran, China, Russia, Venezuela–especially when thinking in Cold War communist vs capitalist terms–because the US has blockaded the country for half a century and it needs trading partners in order to survive. And the US makes a really good foil to Cuba, a country whose leadership still references the Revolution, who uses the rhetoric of revolution and us vs them to unite the people despite a country with crumbling infrastructure facing economic collapse. And this latest executive order is being used by the Diaz-Canel administration as a means of uniting a population despite the deep unpopularity of the Cuban government.
And some of the accusations in this executive order are FUCKING RICH coming from the Trump regime, quote “The communist regime persecutes and tortures its political opponents; denies the Cuban people free speech and press; corruptly profits from their misery; and commits other human-rights violations. For example, families of political prisoners face retaliation for peacefully protesting the improper confinement of their loved ones. Cuban authorities harass worshippers, block free association by civil society organizations, prohibit free press, and deny the ability to speak freely, including on the internet.” Like it’s fine if WE do it, but slap a “communist” label on it and now it threatens the stability of the entire hemisphere. Also, while Cuba’s foreign policy and alliances may in some cases be DEEPLY problematic, they are not new, there is no new state of emergency to tie this emergency declaration to. The Trump regime is taking the old school “communism bad” cold war rhetoric, the tool of fearmongering used in the 20th Century, and molding it to the 21st century fearmongering of choice: terrorism.
And what is Trump proposing to do to stop this horrible emergency terrorism threat? Tariffs. Obviously. He promises to add tariffs to imports on goods into the United States from any country that directly or indirectly provides oil to Cuba. But, the order says, if Cuba takes steps to address this “national emergency” and align more closely with the United States, Trump reserves the right to modify the order. It’s ransom. And who’s in charge of monitoring the ongoing “national emergency” related to Cuba? Marco Rubio.
The country most obviously targeted by this executive order now that Venezuela is under Trump’s thumb is Mexico. The ruling Morena party has long ties with Cuba and so President Sheinbaum is facing a lot of pressure from within her coalition to support Cuba. At the same time, massive new tariffs on Mexican imports into the US would strain the Mexican economy. Reports say that the Mexican government is in talks with the United States about a compromise wherein Mexico could send oil and supplies to the island in the form of humanitarian aid, though it’s unclear whether that compromise will be successful. The US itself has pledged $6 million dollars in aid for Cuba in the form of food and solar lamps, but that aid will be distributed by the Catholic Church, I guess, according to reporting from the Associated Press which interviewed Jeremy Lewin, a US Department of State Senior official who confirmed his mother was born in Cuba. If the name Jeremy Lewin sounds familiar, this is one of the weirdo DOGE bros with a shady past who took a wrecking ball to our government last year. He was placed in charge of policy and programs at what remained of USAID after it was gutted last year. He was the one who signed the email officially shuttering the agency and firing most of its staff. And according to the Rolling Stone he also has a history of assaulting a fellow student at the elite private school where he went to high school and threatening a girl with a knife, who later filed a police report. Rolling Stone interviewed 10 people close to him, many of whom described him as a violent racist who was into the great replacement theory before it was popular. That’s who’s in charge of USAID and, apparently, the $6 million dollars in aid the US has pledged to send to Cuba. That money is, of course, a drop in the bucket for a country that can’t keep its lights on, is seeing long lines at gas stations, and experiencing a crisis the UN says may devolve into humanitarian collapse if aid doesn’t reach them soon. And I’m annoyed the Associated Press quoted this Jeremy Lewin character with no additional background on who he is because it makes it seem like he’s just some government aid worker and not an unqualified lunatic, though I suppose you can kinda just assume that about anyone speaking on behalf of the Trump regime at this point.
But that brings us to our final question and that is why is Cuba such a thorn in the side of the US and specifically a focus of the Trump regime? Marco Rubio’s ties to the Cuban diaspora aside, Cuba is relatively small potatoes compared to, for example, the ongoing stand off with Iran. Especially considering Trump promised his base he wouldn’t get all muddled up in foreign conflicts. I think the interview on Al Jazeera’s The Take with journalist Ed Augustin is insightful here as well. I’ve linked all my sources in the description as usual. One reason is of course the age old rivalry between the US and any communism happening in the Western Hemisphere. My episode on the Monroe Doctrine or “Donroe Doctrine” talked a lot about this. Additionally, we can’t underestimate the importance of the sheer proximity of Cuba to the United States. 90 miles is really close. I think similar to regime change in Venezuela, for the people working behind the scenes of the Trump regime, the long dreamed of regime change in Cuba would be a major victory and would eradicate the perceived or real threat of Russian, Chinese, Iranian etc presence so close to home. Of course the continued blockade against Cuba has done nothing over the last 60 years but push Cuba closer and closer to our adversaries out of sheer necessity, but sure. We love to strong arm these communist regimes until they bend to our will. Ousting opposition in Venezuela was a longtime goal, the same goes for Cuba. For Trump himself, though, I think it’s all about ego. Obama made inroads with Cuba, opening the door for a bit to attempt to normalize relations with the island. Trump came in and slammed the door closed during his first term. If he could then turn around and force a regime change in Cuba he could add that feather to his cap and do something his predecessors never could, which he would love. The Trump dream here really would likely be something similar to what he’s talked about in Gaza–the US goes in, brings capitalism to the starving masses, Trump gets to put up a couple Trump towers in Havana, they clean the whole place up, and everyone walks away happy with the Cuban government now comfortably in the pocket of the United States. That, I think, would be the ultimate win for Trump. And by starving out Cuba, by threatening any and all countries that dare to attempt to send oil and supplies to Cuba, the United States is trying to starve it into compliance. Which, for the record, the US has tried to do for the last half century unsuccessfully, which is all the more reason why Trump would love to have a victory over Cuba to point to to say look I did what no one else could do. At this point it’s unclear whether that would work. The idea of forcing regime change like they did in Venezuela is a lot harder in Cuba–Cuba has a very loyal military, it has fully secured all its borders because it’s an island it’s a lot easier to do that as an island, and Cuba has a famously skilled military intelligence apparatus. Those are things Venezuela did not have and that have protected Cuba from successful US intervention by force. Which is why the economic sanctions have been the weapon of choice for the US this entire time. Trump is just turning up the heat, hoping that enough starving Cubans will eventually pressure the government to cave. Given that the Cuban people have historically seen the US as the big aggressor, as the enemy, it’s not clear that even if they are suffering there would be popular support for the administration of Diaz Canel to cave to Trump’s demands. As with much of global politics, we are kind of all being forced to sit and wait and watch while the egos of a few men play out on the global stage. For the people living in Cuba, that could very well spell humanitarian disaster before any resolution is reached.
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And if you liked this episode, you’ll like my episode from last week about abolishing ICE.
