As Trump turns his gaze toward Cuba, the real target might be China
With deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in custody in New York and his decapitated regime in Caracas quietly cooperating with the United States, President Donald Trump has shifted his hostile refrain to Cuba.
“Cuba is a failed nation,” Mr. Trump said recently. “That’s it for the countdown.”
And with the Trump administration’s severing of Venezuela’s oil lifeline to Cuba — and a Jan. 29 executive order threatening harsh tariffs on any country supplying oil to the island nation — that assessment appears increasingly accurate.
Why we wrote this
The deterioration of the situation in Cuba, in the context of the Trump administration’s aggressive posture towards the Western Hemisphere, is fueling a debate in Washington: regime change or agreement? Experts believe that the latter solution is more likely, while a more important strategic objective could be to curb the Chinese presence on the island.
The oil blockade quickly led Cuba to adopt harsh measures, including stopping all public transportation, instituting a four-day work week, closing tourist hotels that provided much-needed revenue, and increasing power outages.
Families already experiencing difficult living conditions are turning to wood and coal for cooking. Some international airlines have canceled flights to the island.
The rapid deterioration of the situation in Cuba is fueling an intensifying debate in Washington: agreement or regime change? Should Mr. Trump opt for a Venezuela-style deal that leaves a cooperative part of the current government in place? Or should he stick together to bring down a communist regime that has been the bane of the United States since 1959?
The president’s rhetoric might suggest he favors the latter option. As a result, some Cuban Americans have become suddenly excited about the prospects of an imminent return to rebuild a democratic, capitalist homeland, and perhaps reclaim the properties they left behind some seven decades ago.
Incremental change versus chaos
Yet anyone hoping for rapid regime change in Havana is likely to be disappointed, many regional experts say.
Instead, most expect to see relentless economic pressure from the United States lead to some kind of agreement between the Trump administration and Cuban power players that would favor gradual change on the island rather than sudden collapse and chaos.
Such an agreement could be negotiated with the Cuban government. But for some former U.S. officials and experts, it is more likely that meaningful negotiations will take place — and if the swirling rumors are accurate, they already are — with other powerful circles. Among the candidates: senior military officials, who have long had a firm grip on the economy, or “retired” decision-makers, including Raúl Castro, the former president and nonagenarian brother of the late revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.
“Trump says we’re talking to the highest-ranking people in Cuba to come to an agreement, and that may or may not be true,” says Michael Rubin, a senior foreign policy fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
“But what we know is that if we talk to real decision-makers, it’s not with the current president, [Miguel] Díaz-Canel, who is just a figurehead,” he adds. “It would have to be with someone or a group that matters.”
Dr Rubin says this could be due to what he calls the “troika” – three aging former leaders led by Mr Castro – or government officials accepting that a deal with the United States is inevitable. Or, with powerful military leaders willing to compromise with the United States to maintain their share of the economy.
The real target is China
Yet any talk of a “deal” begs the question: In the case of Cuba, what is President Trump seeking?
While the United States’ main strategic “objective” in Venezuela was access to the country’s oil (and cutting it off from its adversaries), what the Trump administration may be targeting in Cuba is not the ouster of the regime, some experts say, but China.
“The most strategic objective here (…) is to prevent China but also Russia from using Cuba as a forward operating base for their intelligence and even their military activities,” explains Christopher Hernandez-Roy, deputy director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. This goal, he notes, “is 100% consistent with the recent national security strategy that aims to remove China from strategic locations in the Western Hemisphere.”
“Trump talks a lot about Greenland, and earlier the Panama Canal and other places in the hemisphere,” he adds, “but there is no place more strategic than 90 miles from the Florida Keys.”
The Cuban government insists that China has no intelligence-gathering infrastructure on the island. But numerous reports from the U.S. government and national security think tanks have asserted in recent years that such spy bases do exist, as do other Latin American countries with close ties to China.
In the debate over the deal or regime change, many experts and some officials willing to speak on condition of anonymity say the unexpected in deciding which option will prevail is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, born in Miami to Cuban parents.
Mr. Rubio’s standing with President Trump has continued to grow in recent months. And he has long championed — as a Florida senator and political darling of South Florida’s exiled Cuban community — a policy aimed at ridding Cuba of the revolution that drove so many Cubans from their homeland.
For its part, the Cuban government affirms that, although it is open to negotiations “respecting the sovereignty of Cuba” with the United States, none are currently underway.
The Venezuelan model
Yet some experts warn that while the exile community and some of the president’s close aides may push for regime change, Mr. Trump may be wise to think about the potential consequences of moving in that direction — and to move closer to a Venezuelan model of action.
“Promoting regime change in Cuba has been the great white whale for many conservatives for a very long time,” says Rosemary Kelanic, an expert on energy security and U.S. grand strategy at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank advocating realistic foreign policy. “This seems especially true in the Cuban community in South Florida and in Trump’s circle of friends at Mar-a-Lago.”
“But while Trump is using oil to increase pressure on the Cuban regime,” she adds, “I think the Venezuelan model and Trump’s talk of a ‘deal’ suggests he might have something other than complete regime change in mind.”
Dr. Kelanic says the relentless pressure on Cuba risks destabilizing it and causing a humanitarian catastrophe just 90 miles from the coast of Florida. “The consequences could include an influx of refugees from Cuba to Florida,” she adds, “so there is a real risk of blowback affecting an issue this administration cares deeply about.”
Forcing regime change “would require deploying Marines to the beaches of Cuba, and that is simply not feasible for a president who is not supportive of options on the ground,” Mr. Hernandez-Roy says. Instead, he envisions what he calls “regime management” that uses economic pressure to incite incremental political change.
“Unlike Venezuela, Cuba does not have a democratic memory to contribute to rapid political change,” he said.
As for who the Trump administration might turn to for meaningful negotiations, Mr. Hernandez-Roy says to keep an eye on Raúl Castro’s son, Alejandro Castro Espín, who was the Obama administration’s behind-the-scenes point person on normalizing U.S.-Cuban relations.
Dr. Rubin notes that more than 2 million Cubans have fled the island in recent years, many of them professionals and members of the middle class, driven out by the economic collapse. He believes that this group could be encouraged to return and participate in the political and economic restructuring of Cuba.
As for what Mr. Trump might expect from any negotiation with Cuba, Dr. Rubin advises keeping in mind that the president is a real estate negotiator who relishes the idea of accomplishing what other presidents have been unable to achieve.
He said what would be particularly appealing to Mr. Trump would be “putting hotels bearing his name on the beaches of Cuba.”
These signs would serve as a constant reminder that while the Cuban communist government blocked 12 American presidents, it was President Trump who ultimately defeated it.
