The End of
Ideology in the Making of U.S. Policy toward Cuba
By Philip Brenner
American
University
Prepared
for Presentation at the XXIII Edition in a Series de Conversations, “Cuba in
the Foreign Policy of the United States of America,” with the theme: “The
Return of Trump: Current and Future Impact on Cuba,” 16 December 2025
Cuba’s
rejection of U.S. hemispheric hegemony after 1959 took on a special meaning in
the context of the Cold War, because U.S. policymakers’ perceptions of threats
to U.S. power became more important than the reality of those threats. After
the Cold War ended, the influence of U.S. ideology on U.S. policy diminished,
although it was still evident as a justification for U.S. hostility. This paper
examines whether ideology has diminished even further since the start of the
Trump administration, and may no longer be a meaningful factor in shaping U.S.
policy toward Cuba.
Cold War Ideology
National security analyst Gregory Treverton summarized
the prevailing view among policymakers as late as 1989 in observing that “Cuban
actions both in and beyond Latin America inject that country to the center of
East–West, and U.S.–Soviet, relations. Whatever the fact, it is impossible for
Americans not to regard Cuba as a kind of Soviet ‘hired gun’ in the Third
World.”[1] In fact, the Soviet leaders did not perceive that
they had Cuba leader Fidel Castro or Cuba under their control at all, and they
repeatedly conveyed their displeasure about Cuban actions between 1965 and
1968. In turn, by 1968 Cuban leaders believed that the Soviet Union was engaged
in efforts to replace them with the former leaders of the Popular Socialist Party.[2]
Despite the reality of the Soviet-Cuban relationship, Cuba’s
rejection of U.S. hemispheric hegemony took on a special meaning in the context
of the Cold War, because policymakers’ threat perceptions were guided by a set
of ideological assumptions, established shortly after World War II, which
divided the world into two hostile camps, the western one dominated by the
United States and the eastern one dominated by the Soviet Union. Policymakers
at the time believed that most global events could be tallied on a “zero-sum”
balance sheet: a gain for the Soviet Union would necessarily be a loss for the
United States, and vice-versa. They thus believed that U.S. policy toward a
country should be guided by the single criterion of whether or not it stood
with the United States against an imagined global communism whose head lay in
Moscow.[3] In this global
war all areas of the world were of equal importance, as officials assumed that U.S.
interests formed a seamless web. Just as a tear in a fish net will let the fish
escape regardless of where the hole forms, so the resulting U.S. global
containment strategy assumed that a defeat anywhere was a defeat everywhere.
This assumption rested on the view that global
communism was monolithic and aggressive. If the United States did not defend
supposed interests in its own backyard, then Soviet agents might be encouraged
to attack U.S. interests in Asia and Africa, or even in Europe. As the dominoes
fell so would U.S. security. Political scientists Peter Smith and Ana
Covarrubias succinctly summarize the U.S. outlook: “In the eyes of Cold
Warriors, the consolidation of any left-wing regime in the Western Hemisphere
would have dire and dangerous implications for U.S. national security and for
the global distribution of power.”[4]
Policymakers were thus primed to believe that Cuba’s
challenge would create the perception of U.S. weakness, regardless of whether
the Soviet Union backed Cuba’s initial forays in Latin America. Cold War
ideology took full control of U.S. policy toward Cuba, because the small island
seemed to pose an enormous security problem, well beyond the harm it could
inflict on particular U.S. interests in the hemisphere. For example, a May 1961
interagency task force report emphasized that Cuba and Fidel Castro himself
were threats because of the damage they could inflict on U.S. prestige, and
hence power, rather than as a result of the harm they might pose to particular U.S.
interests.[5]
Post Cold-War Ideology
While the Cold War ideological framework was perhaps
the major factor in explaining U.S. policy toward Cuba for the first thirty
years of the Revolution, this ideological underpinning of U.S. policy did not
disappear completely when the Cold War ended. With the collapse
of the Soviet Union, some U.S. policymakers believed the global order had
arrived at a “unipolar moment.” From this perspective, the United States would
lead the entire world – not merely the Western Hemisphere – as a hegemonic
power.[6]
It is important to
distinguish the idea of hegemony from that of imperialism. Both require a
country with extraordinary military and economic power. An imperial state seeks
power in order to dominate other states and extract wealth from them, or
prevent them from gaining power that would potentially threaten the imperial
state’s ability to dominate. In contrast, a state that aspires to hegemony
seeks power in order to develop and maintain a system from which it benefits, largely
because it shapes the rules that govern the system. An imperial power tends to
fear and avoid any loss, because such a loss would seem to threaten its control
and might encourage further losses. In contrast to an imperial state, a
hegemonic power is willing to accept occasional losses that are generated by
the system’s rules because it recognizes that other countries must believe the
rules governing the system are fair. For example, in the 1990s, the United
States was willing to abide by World Trade Organization decisions that did not
favor the United States.[7]
From this point of
view, Cuba continued to be an irritant if not a challenge to the U.S.
aspiration of being the global hegemon, and in effect to the post-Cold War
order itself. Even though Cuba was a member of the World Trade Organization, it
rejected participation in the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the
Inter-American Development Bank – key institutions by which the United States
shaped the world order it hoped to stabilize. Cuba also opposed U.S. plans for
a Western Hemisphere free trade pact (the Free Trade Agreement of the
Americas), and in 2004 established an alternative, the Bolivarian Alliance for
the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). In addition, as the United States sought to
make electoral democracy a defining characteristic for each state in this new
global order, Cuba’s exclusion from the Inter-American Democratic Charter made
it a pariah state.
Thus in the
immediate post-Cold War period, ideology did continue to play a role in shaping
U.S. policy toward Cuba, as the U.S. vision of hegemonic domination was an
ideological lens through which many policymakers defined U.S. national
interests. However, domestic U.S. politics appears to have been an equal if not
more important factor in this period.[8]
As Saul Landau and I assessed in 1990:
With the Cold War
against the Soviets nearly over, and ideological zealots replaced by pragmatic ‘realists’
in the White House, Cuba's importance on the grand strategy
board has
diminished. Although belligerent rhetoric makes the Bush Administration's
policy seem similar to Reagan's, the White House today has less interest and concern
than its predecessor in the revolution 90 miles from the Florida coast. U.S.
goals--the destruction or
surrender of the
revolution--remain the same. But the administration has allowed the policy ball
to move into Congress's court.[9]
In the legislature, the Cuban American
lobby had acquired significant political power through carefully targeted
campaign donations and the arrival of Cuban American members in the House of
Representatives. By 1991 they succeeded in passing the Mack Amendment, which
would have removed a 1975 executive order allowing third country subsidiaries
of U.S. corporations to trade with Cuba, and would have prohibited ships that
docked in Cuba from coming to the United States for six months. President
George H.W. Bush vetoed the legislation in response to demands from U.S.
trading partners such as Canada. But in 1992, at a point of desperation in his
presidential campaign, Governor Bill Clinton endorsed the Cuban Democracy Act
or CDA -- a new version of the Mack Amendment -- sponsored by Robert
Torricelli, a New Jersey Democratic Representative. In turn, Clinton received
nearly $275,000 in Cuban American campaign donations.[10]
President Bush then felt compelled to sign the CDA, fearing that otherwise he
might not be able to carry Florida and New Jersey in the 1992 election.
Similarly in 1996, President Clinton felt compelled to sign the 1996
Helms-Burton Law (the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996) in
his pursuit of Florida votes for his re-election campaign. The two laws became
the major constraint on U.S. policy toward Cuba for the next two decades.
The Role of Ideology Diminishes Further
The importance of
domestic policy became even more potent during the administration of George W.
Bush. Cuban exiles had cemented Florida’s electoral votes for Bush – in voting
for him and by disrupting the re-count in Miami -- which enabled him to claim victory
in the 2000 election. But by 2003 he had given them little reward, which openly
angered them. In response, Bush created the Commission for Assistance to a Free
Cuba, which, in its own words, “sought a more proactive, integrated, and
disciplined approach to undermine the survival strategies of the Castro regime
and contribute to conditions that will help the Cuban people hasten the
dictatorship’s end.”[11]
The last five
chapters of the report described a post-Castro, U.S.-governed transition to a
market democracy that were reminiscent of halcyon days in the early twentieth
century when U.S. proconsul governors ruled Cuba. While few analysts treated
the pie-in-the-sky transition plans as if they were serious, their attention
was drawn to the first chapter – “Hastening Cuba’s Transition” – because it
contained several proposals that the president accepted and put into immediate
effect. These included: restrictions on family visits, so that Cuban-Americans
would be able to return to the island only once every three years and would be
allowed to spend no more than $50 per day on lodging and food; restrictions on
remittances, so that U.S. citizens would be permitted to send money only to
immediate family members in Cuba; restrictions on educational travel, so that U.S.
colleges and universities would be licensed only for programs lasting at least
ten weeks; increased funds for political opponents of the government inside
Cuba and for U.S.-based programs designed to support dissidents; and stepped-up
propaganda efforts, using U.S. military aircraft to transmit Radio and TV Martí
broadcasts to Cuba.[12]
This comprised a wish list that hard-line Cuban Americans has been advocating
for more than a decade.
During the 2008
presidential campaign, Barack Obama focused on the unpopularity within the
Cuban American community of Bush’s draconian policy. He promised to reverse
some of the measures that constrained family engagement, and he won almost a
majority of Florida’s Cuban vote. As promised, early in his administration, he ended
restrictions on their travel and the sending of remittances. In 2013, when he
directed his Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes to pursue negotiations
with Cuba, he appears to have been motivated largely by a hope of increasing U.S.
influence in Latin America. According to Rhodes, he also hoped an opening might
catalyze “reforms on the island,” which suggests ideology did play a small role
in his initiative.[13]
Trump and the
Return of Power Politics
Trump’s Western
Hemisphere foreign policy emerged with clarity when John Bolton became National
Security Adviser in 2018. While Trump issued the bellicose National Security
Presidential Memorandum NSPM–5 (entitled ‘‘Strengthening the Policy of the
United States Toward Cuba’’) in June 2017, he kept in place nearly all of the
agreements the Obama administration had completed with Cuba. He imposed new
sanctions only in September, after members of Congress repeatedly demanded the
White House respond to claims by U.S. diplomats that they had experienced health
anomalies associated with the so-called Havana Syndrome. But their symptoms started
occurring in November 2016, so that Trump could have used their health as an
excuse for a more hostile policy from his first day in office. His main action in
2017 was to reduce the size of the Havana embassy’s staff and insist that Cuba
also reduce the size of its embassy’s staff in Washington, which had the effect
of limiting migration.
Bolton, though,
sought a muscular foreign policy in Latin America. In November 2018 he included
Cuba in what he called a “Troika of Tyranny,” asserting that “this triangle of
terror stretching from Havana to Caracas to Managua, is the cause of immense
human suffering, the impetus of enormous regional instability, and the genesis
of a sordid cradle of communism in the Western Hemisphere.”[14]
He promised the United States would
aggressively pursue the overthrow of each country’s government. In the next two
years, the Trump administration followed up with a series of sanctions that
culminated in returning Cuba to the State Department’s list of state sponsors
of terrorism and in choosing not to waive Title III of the Helms-Burton law.
While Bolton claimed that the policy was rooted in an ideological commitment to
democracy, his and Trump’s support of authoritarian governments belied their
pretense that the policy was engendered by a desire to promote democracy. As
with their general approach to foreign policy, hostility towards Cuba (as well
as toward Venezuela and Nicaragua) was based on their quest for dominance and
Cuba’s refusal to acquiesce to U.S. power.
In addition, it
was not mere coincidence that Bolton announced the policy in Miami. He
pointedly observed: “I’m here on behalf of the President because we’ve got some
important policy concerns to address with respect to Latin America, and I
couldn’t think of a better place really to try and discuss them.” Thus, in
addition to asserting the right to dominate the Western Hemisphere, a second
factor that shaped the policy was domestic electoral politics, namely,
appealing to emigres in Florida from Cuba and Venezuela to secure their votes.
Given that
President Joe Biden essentially maintained Trump’s policy until his last few
weeks in office, one might argue that his Cuba policy was rooted in power
politics also. But Biden actually devoted little attention to Latin America
except for concerns about immigration and drugs which were, in effect, domestic
electoral concerns. Similarly, the ultimate source of his Cuba policy was his
misguided hope that antagonism towards Cuba would ultimately gain votes for
Democrats in Florida, and even help him win re-election in 2024.[15]
When he returned to the presidency in
2025, Trump immediately reversed Biden’s relaxation of sanctions. No surprise
here. The surprise was that he did not do much more. In June 2025, he re-issued
the 2017 National Security Presidential Memorandum
(NSPM-5), but did little else beyond adding some Cuban officials and hotels
to sanction lists and discontinuing the issuance of visas for family visits and
ending a humanitarian parole program.[16] While
Trump asserted in NSPM-5 that “I will seek to promote a stable,
prosperous, and free country for the Cuban people,” Cuba policy seemed to be
guided more by fear that worsening economic conditions and more U.S. pressure
might lead to an uncontrollable and unwanted influx of migrants from Cuba.
To be sure, there have been some
policymakers who have sought to resurrect a new Cold War ideological
justification for U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere. For example, in his
February 2025 posture statement, Admiral Alvin Holsey, Commander of the U.S.
Southern Command, asserted that “China’s long-term global campaign to become
the world’s dominant geostrategic power is evident in the Western Hemisphere.”[17] Identifying
such an alleged threat unquestionably served the interest of his usually
under-supported Command. But the November 2025 National Security Strategy
emphasizes the economic “inroads” made by “non-Hemispheric competitors,” which
it proposes to counter with more assertive economic initiatives.
Notably, the National Security
Strategy does not even mention Cuba, and the document may not even guide
policy. It seems to be a patchwork of assertions – some contradicting others --
aimed at satisfying different interests within
the Trump administration. But its general thrust is consistent with Trump’s
goal of global retrenchment and establishing the United States as a regional
hegemon. It boldly states, “we will assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to
the Monroe Doctrine.[18] As
with the original Monroe Doctrine, and the Roosevelt and Wilson Corollaries,
this is not a statement of ideology. It is an assertion of crude power in
pursuit of extracting wealth and privilege. Indeed, in the manner of would-be
emperors before him, Trump’s actions in the region may also reflect his whims
of the moment and corrupt interests. For example, it would be difficult to
explain Trump’s pardon of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, or
similarly his effort to manipulate the verdict against former Brazilian
president Jair Bolsonaro, as evidence of a coherent ideology.
Cuba policy now seems to fit the
general pattern. Cuba is a nuisance, an “infernal little republic” as President
Theodore Roosevelt remarked, because it will not succumb to U.S. dictates. Trump
and Rubio may invoke “democracy” in NSPM-5, declaring that the “Cuban people
have long suffered under a Communist regime that suppresses their legitimate
aspirations for freedom.” But Trump’s support for brutal, authoritarian rulers,
and his hollowing out of democratic institutions, procedures and norms in the
United States, make a mockery of any claim that he has professed about a
genuine concern for democracy. Power politics and domestic political interests
govern U.S. policy toward Cuba. The role of ideology has been declining for
more than thirty years, and it is now at its end. Ideology is no longer a
meaningful factor in shaping U.S. policy toward Cuba policy.
Notes
[1]
Gregory F. Treverton, “Cuba in U.S. Security Perspective,” in U.S.–Cuban
Relations in the 1990s, eds. Jorge I. Domínguez and Rafael Hernández
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1989), p. 71. For example, in 1967 President Lyndon
Johnson thought he could curtail Cuban support for liberation movements in
Latin America by asking Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin to pressure Fidel. See: “Telephone
Conversation Between President Johnson and Former President Eisenhower,” June
25, 1967, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XIV,
Soviet Union, doc 237 at: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v14/d237.
[2]
James G. Blight and Philip Brenner, Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba’s Struggle
with the Superpowers After the Missile Crisis (Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Littlefield, 2002), chapter 4.
[3]
These assumptions were embodied in a 1950 policy paper prepared for and adopted
by the National Security Council, “NSC-68: United States Objectives and
Programs for National Security.” See: Foreign Relations of the United States,
1950, National Security Affairs; Foreign Economic Policy, Volume I, Document
85, April 14, 1950; available at:
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950v01/d85. Also: Ernest R.
May, American Cold War Strategy: Interpreting NSC 68 (Boston: Bedford Books,
1993).
[4]
Peter H. Smith and Ana Covarrubias, Talons of the Eagle: Latin America, the
United States, and the World, 5th ed.
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), p. 160.
[5] “Paper Prepared for the
National Security Council by an Interagency Task Force on Cuba, Washington, May
4, 1961, FRU.S. 1961-1963, Vol 10, Document No. 202; at:
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10/d202.
[6] Hal Brands, Making the
Unipolar Moment: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Rise of the Post-Cold War Order
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016).
[7]
For example, see World Trade Dispute Settlement DS174: “European Communities —
Protection of Trademarks and Geographical Indications for Agricultural Products
and Foodstuffs,” at: https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds174_e.htm.
[8] Philip Brenner,
Patrick J. Haney and Walter Vanderbush, “The Confluence of Domestic and
International Interests: U.S. Policy
Toward Cuba, 1998-2001,” International
Studies Perspectives, May 2002.
[9] Philip Brenner and Saul
Landau, “Passive Aggressive,” NACLA
Report on the Americas, 24:3 (November 1990), p. 14.
[10] William M. LeoGrande and
Peter Kornbluh, Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations
Between Washington and Havana (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2014), pp. 270-71; Walt Vanderbush and Patrick J Haney,
“Policy toward Cuba in the Clinton Administration,” Political Science
Quarterly, Fall 1999.
[11] The report is available
at: https://www.american.edu/centers/latin-american-latino-studies/upload/bush-commission-report.pdf.
[12] This paragraph is drawn
from Soraya M. Castro Mariño and Philip Brenner, “The George W. Bush-Castro
Years,” in Fifty Years of Revolution: Perspectives on Cuba, the United
States, and the World, eds. Soraya M. Castro Mariño and Ronald W. Pruessen (Gainesville:
University Press of Florida, 2012), p. 306.
[13] Ben Rhodes, The World
as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House ( New York: Random House,
Kindle Edition, 2018), p. 212.
[14] “Remarks by National
Security Advisor Ambassador John R. Bolton on the Administration’s Policies in
Latin America,” November 2, 2018; available at: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-national-security-advisor-ambassador-john-r-bolton-administrations-policies-latin-america/.
[15] Kelly Hayes, “DNC
launches ad promoting Joe Biden support for Cuban liberty,” Florida Politics,
July 25, 2021; at: https://floridapolitics.com/archives/443447-dnc-launches-new-ad-promoting-joe-biden-support-for-cuba/.
Also see: Guillermo J. Grenier and Qing Lai, “THE 2024: FIU CUBA POLL: HOW
CUBAN AMERICANS in
South Florida View U.S. Policies Towards Cuba, Critical
National Issues and the Upcoming Elections,” Cuban Rersearch Institute, Florida
International University, October 2024; at: https://cri.fiu.edu/research/fiu-cuba-poll/the-2024-fiu-cuba-poll-report-final.pdf.
[16] William M. LeoGrande,
“Trump Appears to Move off Regime Change Approach to Cuba,” Foreign Policy,
July 10, 2025, at: https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/10/trump-cuba-regime-change-united-states/;
“National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-5,” June 30, 2025, at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/06/national-security-presidential-memorandum-nspm-5/.
[17] “Statement Of Admiral
Alvin Holsey Commander, United States Southern Command Before the 119th
Congress Senate Armed Services Committee,” 13 February 2025; at: https://www.southcom.mil/Portals/7/Documents/Posture%20Statements/2025_SOUTHCOM_Posture_Statement_FINAL.pdf.
[18] National Security
Strategy of the United States of America, The White House, November, 2025,
p. 5 (available at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf.
Also see: Jack Nicas, “The ‘Donroe Doctrine’: Trump’s Bid to Control the
Western Hemisphere,” New York Times, November 17, 2025; at: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/world/americas/trump-latin-america-monroe-doctrine.html.
Also see: Jordana Timerman,
“Un Imperio Sin Pretextos,” Le Monde Diplomatique, Edicion 318,
diciembre 2025; at: https://www.eldiplo.org/318-las-garras-de-estados-unidos-sobre-america-latina/un-imperio-sin-pretextos/.
