Regime change in Cuba has long been on President Donald Trump’s to-do list. But with Tehran dominating the agenda, Havana is getting a reprieve — for now.
Given the amount of resources and attention being spent on Iran, and the chaos confronting Russia would cause, Trump and his aides decided it would be best to let the Cuban regime live for now, said a person familiar with the administration’s discussions on Cuba.
But the administration is still interested in changing Cuba’s political and economic system, the person added.
And delaying any action by Cuba could work in Trump’s favor, said a second person familiar with the administration’s discussions, who also confirmed that the White House has made Cuba a priority during the Iran war. The delay would make any future move difficult to predict, the person argued.
Either way, the administration seems determined to avoid turning a humanitarian disaster 90 miles from its coast into a major disaster.
Amid the oil embargo that has adversely affected Cuba’s economy and worsened its growing humanitarian crisis, Trump allowed the Russian oil tankerto reach the island this week – and it seemed to indicate that he will be open to more of the same.
Moscow is preparing to send another ship to the island, Russian Energy Minister Sergey Tsivilyov said todayalthough it remains to be seen whether the United States will allow the vessel to dock.
The move is a sign of the Trump administration realizing that “using human torture as a tool for political change can create many more problems,” including mass immigration, said Jeffrey DeLaurentis, a former senior official at the U.S. embassy in Cuba during the Obama administration.
It also shows Trump’s desire not to give Russian President Vladimir Putin a chance, DeLaurentis said.
But it’s not necessarily indicative of a cohesive strategy, said Ricardo Zúñiga, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Affairs at the State Department during the Biden administration.
While Trump allowed the Russian ship to pass, he could turn around and continue to clamp down on Mexican shipping, Zúñiga said.
And the decision to allow a small break in the blockade certainly does not mean that the administration has completely abandoned the change of government on the island.
A White House official, who, like others, did not want to be named to discuss sensitive Cuban plans, said “we are talking to Cuba, whose leaders want to make a deal and they should make a deal, which President Trump believes ‘would be done very easily.’
Cuban officials He confirmed the talks with the United Stateslast month – but he made it clear that any discussion about the island’s political and economic systems was off the table.
“He will go back to Cuba,” said Frank Mora, who served as the United States ambassador to the United States during the Biden administration. “He believes he can be a historic figure in Cuba,” so it’s a matter of when, not if, the administration will act on the island, Mora said.
And then, of course, there is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is not only the son of Cuban immigrants and a proponent of government change on the island, but is facing intense pressure from the anti-government base in his home state of Florida.
Rubio he told Fox News’ Sean HannityTuesday that the economic and political systems in Cuba need to change, teasing that “we will have more information about that soon.”
Still, with full focus on Iran, the heat is off on Cuba for now. That will give his government time to try to shape negotiations in its favor – and potentially give the island some relief from economic strangulation.
“On the Cuban side, they really want to play for a while,” Zúñiga said. Meanwhile, the situation for Cuban citizens is “worse than at almost any time in living memory,” he added.
Nahal Toosi contributed to this story.
A version of this story previously appeared in POLITICONational Security Daily Journal.
