The capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro in the heart of Caracas last month served multiple purposes for Donald Trump. First, the operation nabbed a man who was a long-time irritant to U.S. interests in Latin America. Second, it demonstrated to other regional leaders what could happen if they refused to meet President Trump’s policy demands. And third, taking Maduro off the board was a force-multiplier for the administration’s Cuba policy, which centers on increasing economic pressure on the island until its aging rulers either wither away or negotiate their own demise.
For some in the administration, the downfall of Cuba’s communist regime would be like a 5-year-old waking up to a mountain of presents on Christmas morning. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose parents left Cuba a few years before Fidel Castro took power, has eyed the regime in Havana as one of the world’s most pernicious, inhumane and troublesome. Trump couldn’t care less about human rights or transplanting democracy on the island, but he does care about wielding power and slaying enemies, real and perceived, to build up his legacy. Given its historical significance, overthrowing the Cuban regime would be at the very top of the list—a feat that all of his predecessors since Dwight D. Eisenhower failed to do.
On the other side of the ledger stands a small, weak country 90 miles off South Florida whose only redeeming quality is the enterprising spirit of its people. Miguel Díaz-Canel, who took over the Cuban presidency from Raúl Castro in 2018, is presiding over Cuba’s worst series of crises since the so-called “special period” of the early to mid-1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s major benefactor, led to widespread rationing. The COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the six-decade-long U.S. trade embargo and more U.S. sanctions on the island, has squeezed Cuba’s finances to the last handful of pennies.
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