Will the Trump administration settle for an agreement with Cuba that will open important sectors of the economy to American investors, including Cuban Americans? Or will it demand a political agreement consistent with a change of government? An economic deal is within the realm of possibility, as the Cuban government has been slowly—very slowly—moving in that direction already. But allowing the United States to dictate the shape of Cuba’s political future is almost certainly a bridge too far for Havana.
The economic agreement will be surprising, given the hardline position of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said for years that the government in Havana must go. But recent statements by him and other Trump officials as well as reports of ongoing negotiations suggest the administration may settle for little more than a regime change—as in Venezuela. New York Times reported on Tuesday that Washington is pushing for the replacement of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel with someone more open to economic reform, a symbolic gesture that will leave the entire government.
Díaz-Canel confirmed on March 13 that Cuba and the United States have been in talks “aimed at finding a solution through dialogue to the bilateral differences that exist between the two nations” and “identifying areas of cooperation.” He did not specify any points of agreement yet or what specific issues are on the table, noting that “we are in the early stages of this process.”
The day before, Cuba he announced the imminent release of 51 prisoners, facilitated by the Vatican—a sign that has often accompanied talks between Havana and Washington. In his press conference, Díaz-Canel also offered an olive branch to people living outside of Cuba, promising to give Cubans abroad “opportunities to participate in the economic and social life of the country.” On Monday, the minister of foreign trade and investment he announced that Cubans abroad could own or invest in private businesses on the island, use the financial system, and even partner with state-owned companies—access that Cuban businessmen have long sought.
US President Donald Trump has been talking about talks with Cuba in the media for more than a month, insisting that Rubio has been dealing with Cuban officials in “very high level” and that the plan is almost complete.
“They want to make a deal so bad, you don’t know,” he said March 5. The terms of the deal are being negotiated. is reported focusing more on economics than politics, with possible deals on ports, energy, and tourism rather than relief from US sanctions. Washington also aims to strengthen Cuba private sector as an objection to the government sector of the economy.
Rubio has repeatedly emphasized that the administration places a high priority on economic transformation and is willing to accept a graduate approach. “Cuba needs to change, and it doesn’t have to change overnight. It doesn’t have to change overnight,” he said. he said during the Caribbean Community (Caricom) meeting on regional cooperation in February. “Everyone is mature and genuine here.”
Rubio’s team has been talking to Raúl Castro’s grandson, Colonel Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, his grandfather’s head of private security. The 41-year-old colonel enjoys a distinguished career as an aviator, leading US officials to see him as “representing the young, business-minded Cubans for whom revolutionary communism has failed – and who see the value of rapprochement with the United States” according to Axios.
Rodríguez Castro is also the son of the late General Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja who, together with Raúl Castro, built the GAESA military business into an economic powerhouse. Rodríguez Castro is said to be his grandfather’s connection to GAESA, which will play an important role in any deal with Washington to open the Cuban economy.
On the sidelines of the Caricom meeting, the chief adviser to the secretary of state reportedly met with Rodriquez Castro at the St. Kitts. Among the issues they discussed, sources told Miami Heraldit was Washington’s intention to gradually lift economic sanctions in exchange for gradual reforms in Cuba, “on a month-to-month basis.”
This quid pro quo tactic is not new. Former US President Bill Clinton was ready to launch a “balanced response” policy with a speech prepared in 1994 suggesting that, “as the Cuban government implements concrete and verifiable measures” to improve human rights and reduce private business regulations, “we will on the one hand reduce barriers affecting trade and seek to improve full relations with Cuba and its people.”
The speech was never given. Before the “revised response” policy began, it was overtaken by events – the great Cuban exodus known as balsero (rafters) crisis. Rubio’s “month-by-month” approach risks a similar fate. Cuba the economic situation is very bad that a new mass immigration crisis could erupt if major sanctions relief does not come soon.
Rubio is a Cuban-American who built his political career as a staunch opponent of any US opening towards Cuba. But his desire to follow a policy of graduates that prioritizes economic reform and only achieve political change “eventually” highlights the president’s priorities in Venezuela, where to put cement America to get oil and maintaining stability has encouraged the transition to democracy. A powerful opposition movement in Venezuela won elections in 2024, but President Nicolás Maduro rigged the results to stay in power.
Trump, at his recent Shield of the Americas conference for like-minded conservative leaders, praised Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodriguezwho was Maduro’s vice president before US forces kidnapped him in January. “We have been working closely with the new president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, who is doing a great job with us,” Trump said. he said. When asked by reporters why he left the Venezuelan administration largely built by Hugo Chávez, Trump said. he reminded them of the chaos that occurred after the regime change in Iraq, “where everyone was fired.”
Expectations that Trump, who won 70 percent of Florida’s Cuban-American vote in 2024, and their favorite son Rubio may cut an economic deal that leaves the regime built by Fidel Castro. anathema to hard Cuban American machines. Responding to reports that a deal may be imminent, Representative Carlos Giménez wrote on X“It has to lead to a transition from these dictators, away from authoritarian regimes.” Giménez, along with Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, have he demanded that Trump is tightening the economic screws even further by cutting commercial flights to Cuba and banning Cuban Americans from sending money to their families—claims the administration has so far ignored.
Trump repeatedly says that he will take care of Cuban Americans, who were among his loyal supporters in the elections of 2016, 2020, and 2024. But Trump is not running again, so Cuban Americans in Miami can no longer call the shots on Cuba policy. This was evident on February 25, when 10 people in exile with heavy weapons he tried to sneak in the island. They were intercepted by the Cuban coast guard and in the ensuing firefight, five were killed. Others were injured, taken into custody and charged with terrorism.
Miami businessmen compared the incident to the 1996 shooting down of two Cuban MiGs from an organization called Brothers to the Rescue, in which four pilots were killed. But instead of taking the incident as an excuse to retaliate, the Trump administration replied calmlyacknowledging that Cuba informed the United States of the incident when it occurred through the usual channels used for cooperation on maritime security and safety. Rubio promised a full investigation, and Díaz Canel has announced that Cuba may receive FBI messages as part of that investigation.
This muted response suggests that Trump’s self-interested approach to foreign policy, not ideological anti-communism, is driving policy toward Cuba. But whether Washington and Havana can reach an agreement to avoid a US military attack depends on whether there is enough compromise between the minimum terms that Trump is willing to accept in the accord and the maximum agreement that Cuban leaders are willing to make.
Demands from Washington for political change, even symbolic ones, may be too bitter a pill, and too blatant an affront to the Cuban authorities, for any Cuban leader to swallow. Monday’s front page headline in the Communist Party newspaper Mrs read“The Baraguá Protests: An Everlasting Mark of the Revolutionary Rebellion Leading Cuba.” The article celebrated independence hero Antonio Maceo’s refusal to accept the treaty that ended Cuba’s first war of independence but left it a Spanish colony.
If the Cubans refuse to kneel, Trump can send the US military to bring them to their knees. “It might be a friendly takeover, it might not be a friendly takeover,” Trump he warned early March. “They’ll make a deal, or we will, just simple, anyway.” In interview with CNN this month, the president promised that he and Rubio would turn to Cuba once they were done with Iran.
With Venezuela forced into submission and Iran under heavy attack by the US and Israel, Trump hopes to achieve the trifecta of regime change by “friendly pickup” of Cuba.
“The president feels like, ‘I’m on the list,'” an administration official told them Atlantic. Overthrowing the government born from the revolution in 1959 has been the dream of successive US presidents for more than half a century. Trump is convinced that the time has come, and he will be the president who will do the job. “I believe I will have the honor of taking Cuba,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on March 16. “To sort of take Cuba. I mean, whether I’m going to liberate it or take it. I think I could do whatever I want with it.”
Trump’s belief that the leaders of Cuba will submit to the wishes of the United States, is based on the sad state of their economy, made worse by the increase in the sanctions of the United States, especially blocking not only the export of Venezuelan oil but all oil exports.
Trump’s words, his new National Security Strategyand its aggressive policies towards Venezuela and Cuba, all mean that Washington about the Western World as an area where other countries are allowed only limited freedom—an idea South Americans spent more than a century trying to overcome.
