Trump says Cuba’s next: Here’s how it could play out

America’s pressure campaign on Cuba is pushing the country to the breaking point, with President Trump and Republicans in Congress predicting the communist regime’s imminent fall.

A major blackout across the western half of Cuba on Wednesday underscored the energy crisis exacerbated by Trump’s fuel blockade. Some analysts warn the Cuban government will exhaust all fuel reserves by mid- to late March, bringing the island to a complete standstill.

Trump has tasked Secretary of State Marco Rubio to lead talks with Cuban officials and has floated a “friendly” takeover of the island.

“They want to make a deal so badly, you have no idea,” Trump said at the White House on Thursday, suggesting that major changes will be happening in a few weeks.

What exactly Trump has in mind is not clear. However, his threats are resonating loudly across the Straits of Florida after Trump’s successful military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and his ongoing war in Iran, which killed the country’s supreme leader.

Latin American experts said Cuba’s leaders are likely considering a range of options that could secure their safety, along with economic reforms, cooperation on Trump’s regional priorities and scaling back ties with America’s adversaries.

Rubio is reportedly holding talks with Raúl Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, the grandson of Raul Castro, the 94-year-old former president and de facto leader of the country. Raul Castro’s control over the Cuban military is viewed as the main power base on the island.

Peter Brown, senior fellow for Western Hemisphere security and maritime affairs at the America First Policy Institute, said it would make sense if the Trump administration is floating secure exile and protections from prosecution for the Castros, or other major power brokers in Cuba.

“Obviously I’m not in the room with Secretary Rubio, or the people who he’s meeting, but I would suspect that’s one of the elements of discussion,” Brown said, “what would be the circumstances under which a transition could take place, and what protections might be available to those departing from positions of power.”

Ricardo Torres, a Cuban economist and faculty fellow with American University, said the Castros, and the military network around them, might be open to the Trump administration’s demands of economic reform, given Trump’s handling of Venezuela.

“One notion was quite dominant at some point, which is they’ve [the regime] always refused significant economic reform because they thought, or they think, that will eventually lead to losing political control,” he said. “One may always argue, well this administration has a different theory of change.”

Torres said there are some practical steps the Cuban government can take that would likely be welcomed by the Trump administration. This includes the release of political prisoners and some guarantees for people to have freedom of expression and association.

Havana could also deepen cooperation with the U.S. on countering illegal migration, drug trafficking and terrorism. And it could form a bilateral task force to compensate American companies that were expropriated at the beginning of the revolution, he said.

“They could do that very easily and it’s also in Cuba’s interest if it wants to become a more attractive foreign investment destination at some point,” he said.

Havana can also offer the U.S. guarantees it will not enter into “any security guarantee with U.S. competitors” like Russia or China.

“All of that, Cuba could do quite easily and then Trump could always say, ‘I got this, and this is very important for us, it’s a lot,’ as just kind of an initial deal,” he said.

But all of that might not be enough for Trump or Republicans in Congress, who are calling for full-on regime change — rather than an arrangement like Venezuela, where Trump has been happy to work with remnants of Maduro’s regime.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) renewed his call for a complete overhaul in Cuba in the aftermath of Trump’s major military operation against Iran.

“Cuba’s next, they’re gonna fall, this communist dictatorship in Cuba, their days are numbered,” Graham said Sunday on Fox News.

Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), who was born in Cuba, posted on the social media site X on Thursday that the regime in Cuba “MUST BE DESTROYED & RELEGATED TO THE DUSTBIN OF HISTORY !”

Trump has been more measured in his remarks, suggesting the U.S. will deal with Iran and Venezuela before turning its full attention to Cuba.

“We could do them all at the same time but bad things happen, if you watch countries over the years, you do them all too fast, bad things happen,” Trump said at the White House on Thursday.

Trump, in remarks to Politico on Thursday, said the demise of the communist regime in Cuba would be the “icing on the cake” following his other interventions.

“And that’s one of the small ones for me,” he said.

John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said political reform in Cuba is not as important as economic reform if Havana wants to satisfy Trump.

“The president doesn’t care whether you’re a dictatorship, monarchy, authoritarian, communist, junta — he doesn’t care as long as you can manage your economy,” he said. “And he defines managing the economy as the ability to import products and services from the United States.”

Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Monday announced “urgent” economic reforms at the same time the Trump administration is demanding change.

“He’s tinkering with the same model without changing the fundamentals,” said Sebastián Arcos, interim director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University. “It means nothing. This is not a reaction to U.S. pressure like we have seen in Venezuela when they say we’re going to release political prisoners.”

“This is not that. It’s an internal conversation within the party rather than a message to the U.S. that they are implementing reforms.”

The State Department seemed to agree. In a statement to The Hill, a spokesperson said the proposed reforms “do not go nearly far enough to begin to amend the decades of incompetence that have made the Cuban economy dysfunctional.”

“Cuba’s failed policies and corrupt leadership cause the Cuban people immense hardship, while regime leaders squirrel away billions in foreign accounts,” the spokesperson added.

Jason Marczak, vice president and senior director at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, said at a minimum, Díaz-Canel needs to step down with a “transition figure” put in place.

“I don’t think that the administration sees any semblance of the current Cuban government as being a government that they can work with,” he said. “They want Díaz-Canel out.”

Marczak pointed out that Cuba is increasingly isolated, not only from its allies like Venezuela, China and Russia, but from Latin American countries that have increasingly aligned with Trump.

On Thursday, Ecuador announced it was expelling the Cuban diplomatic mission in the country, as it carried out a major counter-“terrorist” operation in coordination with the U.S.

“The moment is different. I can’t remember another time since the Cuban revolution that it has so few friends across the hemisphere right now,” Marczak said.

Ecuador is one of nearly a dozen countries attending Trump’s Latin America Leaders’ Summit being held at the Trump Doral Hotel in Miami on Saturday. The guest list includes right-wing, conservative governments — some recently elected — which have demonstrated loyalty to Trump, or at least unity with the U.S., over the past year.

The summit could serve as another key venue to project the message to Cuba that it needs to accede to U.S. demands.

“It looks pretty good for the United States to manage sort of a majority of Latin American countries to say, no it’s time for change in Cuba, like right now,” said Arcos, of Florida International University.

“The gut reaction is always oh poor Cuba, it’s a little country and the United States is the big bully. But I think that veil is dissipating and it’s dissipating fast.”