Cuban-American lawmakers are urging the Trump administration to impose maximum pressure on the island’s totalitarian regime, arguing the Communist government is weaker than it has ever been.
“It’s a failed nation, and they’re not getting any money from Venezuela, and they’re not getting any money from anyone,” President Trump, who reportedly is eyeing regime change in Cuba before the end of this year, told reporters Feb. 2, days after he threatened tariffs on countries that sell or provide oil to the island.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledged Thursday during a rare news conference that the regime wouldn’t be able to guarantee electricity or even “basic activities” amid fuel shortages.
While Díaz-Canel expressed openness to talking with the Trump administration, he said discussions over Cuba’s sovereignty would not be on the table and that the nation was preparing a “defense plan” in response to pressure from Washington.
“We aren’t in a state of war,” Díaz-Canel said, “but we are preparing ourselves in case we have to move to a state of war.”
Meanwhile, Trump has indicated that negotiations are already taking place with top Cuban officials, saying last week that “I think we’re pretty close” to an agreement.
Alejandro Castro Espin, the son of former Cuban President Raul Castro, reportedly is among the top officials who have engaged in those dealings, which could provide the regime with an off-ramp to remain in power.
However, Trump has said the deal he’s looking to strike would allow Cuba to “be free again” after 67 years of repressive rule.
US Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), who was forced to flee Cuba as a young child shortly after Fidel Castro’s takeover in 1959, told The Post in a recent interview that “I do believe” regime change in Havana will happen soon.
“I’ve been here 65 years, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the regime as weak as it is right now,” he said.
“I think what the administration should be doing is what they’re doing — putting pressure on supposed friends of ours that are helping to maintain the regime.”
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), whose father fled the Communist takeover, similarly called on Trump to tighten the screws.
“What needs to happen is to increase the pressure, and what I mean by that is pressure in every way: economic, diplomatic, in every way possible,” he said.
“It’s the only thing that’s ever worked in the history of our planet when you have a dictatorship like this that doesn’t want to give up power,” Diaz-Balart argued. “Zero tolerance and total pressure.”
Cracking down on Mexican oil
The Mexican government has long voiced “solidarity” with Cuba and has historically provided the regime with token amounts of crude oil.
While Mexico’s petroleum shipments to the island have plummeted since the Jan. 3 arrest of Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro — dropping to around 3,000 barrels per day so far this year from about 20,000 barrels per day in 2025, according to the Wall Street Journal — Trump has signaled that he would like to see that figure at zero.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has framed her country’s oil shipments to Cuba as “humanitarian” in nature, but begrudgingly signaled Feb. 1 that Mexico would indeed be halting oil shipments to the island.
The Communist island has between 15 and 20 days worth of oil left, according to trade intelligence firm Kpler.
“The word ‘choke off’ is awfully tough,” Trump told reporters about his strategy toward Cuba. “I’m not trying to, but it looks like it’s something that’s just not going to be able to survive.”
‘No one who can come to save them’
Sebastián A. Arcos, the interim director of Florida International University’s Cuban Research Institute, confirmed that “there is no longer an expectation that the regime will survive in the medium term.”
“Before [Maduro’s arrest] Jan. 3, it was understood that the regime was in a terminal crisis with a long horizon … that assumption evaporated after what Trump did in Venezuela,” Arcos said. “Without Venezuela and oil, the Cuban economy will go from limping along to collapsing.”
“There is no one who can come to save them from their own economic incompetence. The economy will shut down once they run out of oil.”
Cuba had received subsidized oil from Venezuela since the 2000s under an agreement brokered by two since-deceased dictators, Castro and Hugo Chavez.
The deal saw Cuba provide the South American country with doctors, military and security personnel in exchange for cheap petroleum.
But rather than using the oil to keep Cuba’s lights on, about 60% of the 70,000 barrels per day Venezuela provided Cuba last year was shipped to Asia for resale, according to a US official.
As daily blackouts plague the island, the move to sell oil is “further proof that the illegitimate Cuban regime only prioritizes enriching itself all while the Cuban people suffer the consequences of their corrupt nature and incompetence,” a State Department official told the Miami Herald late last month.
Politico reported in late January that the White House is considering a total naval blockade to prevent Havana from accessing any future oil shipments.
“Look, this regime has destroyed the island,” Gimenez said. “There’s no power, there’s no food, there’s no medicine — it’s at its end, it’s time for them to go.
“Any and all pressure that can be exerted to make this cancer go away is what the United States needs to do.”
‘Its days are numbered’
Neither Florida Republican believes it will be necessary to use the US military to topple the regime.
“Because it is so weak, I think you exert as much pressure as possible and let the regime collapse under its own weight,” Gimenez argued.
“If pressure is increased, I think its days are numbered,” Diaz-Balart said. “The president — and this president particularly — always keeps all options on the table, but I just don’t think [US military intervention] necessary.”
Arcos said he could see Trump taking military action in the event anti-government protesters take to the streets and the regime “decides that they will do what the Iranians did, and they start massacring innocent Cubans.”
“The pressure on the US government to do something [in that scenario] will be immense,” Arcos predicted, adding that he has no doubt “there will be blood in the streets” if Cubans revolt against the government.
Who will take charge?
Raúl Castro, the younger brother of Fidel, turned the presidency of Cuba over to Díaz-Canel in 2021, but he and his family are believed to still wield immense power and would likely be involved in any negotiations with the US.
“Everyone in Havana — even Cuban government officials — acknowledge Raúl Castro is really in charge, but he’s 94 years old, and his top aides are in their 90s as well,” Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told The Post.
“Miguel Díaz-Canel is just a figurehead, and figureheads whose patrons die soon find themselves in exile or hanging from the gallows,” he added.
Rubin warned that any sort of extended power vacuum in Cuba could allow the “Russians, Chinese, or even their Nicaraguans proxies to move in.”
“What [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio should be doing now is setting up the parameters of a constitutional convention so Cubans have some degree of insight into their future,” Rubin argued.
Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration was already meeting with Cuban exile groups and trying to figure out who inside the regime might be able to help with a transition to a more pro-America government.
“The department regularly meets with civil society types. As is typical in routine meetings such as these, no commitments were made,” a senior State Department official told The Post when asked about the meetings.
Unlike in Venezuela, political dissent has been completely repressed in Cuba. There is no formal opposition party or opposition leader, which stands to make the transition to democracy all the more challenging.
“There are more political prisoners in Cuba than in Venezuela, and Venezuela is four times bigger,” Arcos explained. “So there is an active political opposition in Cuba, but it is completely repressed by the government.
“The opposition exists, but it cannot grow into what the Venezuelan opposition did, because this is a police state … It’s a different kind of animal.”
Rubin, a former Pentagon official, believes the Trump administration via the CIA is “absolutely” sounding out Cuban officials who could potentially help with a regime transition.
“When a country’s economy collapses and its ideology is discredited, people will do anything for money,” Rubin said. “I’m sure the CIA’s biggest problem is actually handling all the potential sources rather than finding one.”
The CIA did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
‘They will try to dupe the US’
Should the regime fall, the Trump administration would likely have to use the Cuban military to force changes on the island.
Cuba’s armed forces has access to about $20 billion in cash, obtained through its control of the island’s most profitable businesses — including hotels, gas stations, money transfer operations and currency exchange agencies, according to Arcos.
The idea would be for the Trump administration to establish a relationship with the Cuban military similar to the one it enjoys with Venezuela’s former Vice President Delcy Rodriguez — but Arcos warned that the military would be unlikely to accept changes that threaten its primacy.
“They will try to dupe the United States government,” he warned. “They will probably enter in some sort of negotiation to gain time … to see if Trump goes away and someone else comes that is different.
“They’re masters at doing this. They did it with Clinton, they did it with Obama, and they will do it to Trump.”
“And in the meantime, you know, we have to send Cuba humanitarian assistance — because the poor Cubans are starving and dying of diseases that didn’t exist 50 years ago — and they remain in power,” Arcos went on.
“So it could be a trick, and they will try to negotiate that way … to fool the United States into a very long-term negotiation where they don’t give much and they get enough to survive.
“If the pressure is not applied,” Arcos continued, “then we might have another extended period of uncertainty.”
Gimenez and Diaz-Balart both acknowledged that they expect the road to democracy in Cuba to be long and challenging, but also a worthwhile endeavor.
“It will not be easy,” Gimenez said. “Will it be long? Yeah, I could see it taking some time, but it’s something that we must, must attain, something that we have to reach.
“It took like, what, seven years for America to gain its independence from Great Britain? So things like that don’t happen overnight. But, you know, I’m sure glad we stuck it out, because that’s how we created the greatest country on Earth, and we can create an unbelievably great country in Cuba.”
