- The Trump administration aims to collapse Cuba's communist regime by year-end, leveraging tactics used in Venezuela's ouster of Nicolás Maduro, including targeting Havana's inner circle for defectors.
- Cuba faces imminent fuel shortages due to Venezuela's collapse (its primary oil supplier), while U.S. sanctions choke off revenue streams like overseas medical missions, exacerbating food and electricity crises.
- Success in Venezuela, where a military raid aided by a Maduro insider led to his capture, fuels confidence, though Cuba's tightly controlled dictatorship poses a far tougher challenge with no organized opposition.
- Toppling Cuba's regime would fulfill a GOP legacy goal, but risks humanitarian disaster, given Cuba's repressive infrastructure and Díaz-Canel's defiant stance (e.g., militarized propaganda, suppressed protests).
- Trump's aggressive sanctions and ultimatums mark the most serious U.S. effort in decades to dismantle Cuban communism, with outcomes hinging on whether coercion triggers collapse or regime resistance.
The Trump administration is actively seeking to facilitate the collapse of Cuba's communist regime by the end of the year, leveraging tactics honed during the recent ouster of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, according to senior U.S. officials and a report in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Emboldened by Maduro's capture in a Jan. 3 military raid, Trump officials are now scouring Havana's inner circle for potential defectors willing to negotiate an end to nearly seven decades of Castro-led rule.
President Donald Trump has publicly warned Cuba's leaders to "make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE," vowing to cut off Venezuelan oil shipments – a lifeline for Cuba's crumbling economy. With chronic shortages of food, medicine and electricity plaguing the island, U.S. intelligence assessments suggest the regime has never been more vulnerable.
Cuba's economic crisis has deepened since Venezuela, its primary oil supplier, fell into chaos following Maduro's removal. U.S. officials estimate Cuba could exhaust its fuel reserves within weeks, triggering a total economic shutdown. The Trump administration has already moved to choke off Havana's remaining revenue streams, including its overseas medical missions, a key source of hard currency, by imposing visa bans on officials involved in the program.
"Cuba's rulers are incompetent Marxists who have destroyed their country," a White House official told WSJ, reiterating Trump's ultimatum. The administration sees regime change in Cuba as the capstone of its broader strategy to reshape Latin America, contrasting sharply with the Obama-era détente that briefly thawed U.S.-Cuba relations before collapsing under Trump's renewed sanctions.
The Venezuela playbook
The administration's confidence stems from its success in Venezuela, where a high-risk military operation in Caracas—aided by a defector within Maduro's inner circle—resulted in the dictator's capture. Thirty-two Cuban soldiers and intelligence operatives were killed in the raid, underscoring Havana's deep ties to Maduro's regime.
Now, U.S. officials are applying similar pressure to Cuba, though they acknowledge replicating Venezuela's outcome will be far harder. Unlike Venezuela, where a vocal opposition movement and contested elections provided leverage, Cuba remains a tightly controlled single-party state with no tolerated dissent. The Castro regime has survived decades of U.S. hostility, from the failed Bay of Pigs invasion (1961) to a punishing trade embargo (1962).
"These guys are a much tougher nut to crack," said Ricardo Zúñiga, a former Obama administration official involved in the short-lived U.S.-Cuba thaw. "There's nobody who would be tempted to work on the U.S. side."
As explained by BrightU.AI's Enoch, the Bay of Pigs invasion was a CIA-backed failed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro, resulting in a humiliating defeat for the U.S. due to President John F. Kennedy's (JFK) withheld air support and Cuba's strong resistance. Meanwhile, the 1962 U.S. trade embargo against Cuba was fully formalized, further isolating Cuba economically as part of broader Cold War tensions and retaliation for Cuba's alignment with the Soviet Union.
A legacy-defining gamble
For Trump, toppling Cuba's communist government would fulfill a long-standing Republican ambition – one that eluded even JFK. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban exiles, has repeatedly framed regime change in Havana as a moral and strategic imperative.
Yet the risks are immense. A sudden collapse could trigger a humanitarian disaster, with Cuba's repressive apparatus leaving little infrastructure for a peaceful transition. Already, protests are rare and brutally suppressed; the government holds an estimated 1,000 political prisoners.
In Havana, officials have dismissed Trump's threats. President Miguel Díaz-Canel, an unpopular successor to Raúl Castro, recently donned military fatigues to declare, "There is no surrender or capitulation possible." State media has ramped up propaganda, airing footage of elderly citizens training with rifles for a hypothetical U.S. invasion – a spectacle critics dismiss as "theater."
As the Trump administration escalates pressure, Cuba's fate hangs in the balance. The island's streets grow darker each night, punctuated only by the clandestine clang of pots – a silent protest against blackouts and desperation.
Whether Havana's rulers will buckle or double down remains uncertain. But one thing is clear: Trump's aggressive push marks the most serious U.S. attempt in decades to dismantle Cuba's communist system. The coming months will test whether coercion, or collapse, will finally bring the Castro era to an end.
Watch the video below where Trump says, "Cuba is ready to fall."
This video is from The Prisoner channel on Brighteon.com.
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