La Joven Cuba on Defeating Trumpism

 To confront Trumpism, the Cuban government has to look inward.

by

Mariana Camejo

 and 

Harold Cardenas Lema

January 7, 2026

Trumpism expects Cuba to fall soon. This was also expected in the early 1990s, and it didn't happen, but this is not the Cuba of those times. Today, amidst a sustained systemic crisis that has eroded the government's credibility, it is this government, and no other, that has had to confront a long-standing conflict. Operating as it has been, it has little room for maneuver and little political capital; but there are steps it could take to unite as many Cubans as possible around the flag.

However, adaptability is not the usual practice of the Cuban government, which is accustomed to speaking only to its most loyal followers and prefers to entrench itself in hostile contexts. This attitude not only hinders external influence but also restricts the possibility of addressing internal problems, because it interprets criticism and recommendations that could contribute to solving them as a threat. In any case, without profound reform, it will be difficult to build consensus.

This change begins by viewing sovereignty as the existence of a political community that has a voice, rights, and agency, and not merely as the argument on which to build discourses of resistance or heroism; the reason of state in the face of foreign interference. 

It is naive to believe that national sovereignty can be preserved without addressing individual sovereignty, because a state can declare itself sovereign, but a country will only truly be sovereign if its citizens feel they have control over their destinies, if they see themselves as active participants in the national project, if they have something they consider worth defending. Therefore, the unity that is essential to resist external pressures constitutes political capital that is lost by closing off spaces for public participation and gained by opening them up. The unity of a majority, then, is a construct achieved through political action; not through obedience, but through consensus.

That said, the truth is that reserves of legitimacy and consensus still exist that Cuban authorities could draw upon, but so far they don't seem to have the ability or the will to exploit them. Furthermore, they have lost the capacity for truly mobilizing political initiative and reaction. An example of this was the initial response to the military operation in Venezuela: public events lacking genuine enthusiasm, repetitive slogans, and a staged performance that, again, indicates a greater focus on demonstrating control than on building popular support. Political acumen would interpret the moment as an opportunity to broaden their social base or at least unite the citizenry. That can't be achieved with a simple rally: fists raised, down with imperialism!

The issue here is that there is a difference between appealing to symbolic gestures and conducting politics in the public interest. The Cuban government may be the target of economic persecution, but it should have understood long ago that this does not justify its actions in the face of public perception, which judges it for erratic or misguided decisions regarding the country's management, not only in economic terms. Decisions, incidentally, that are often interpreted as deliberate and detrimental to the people.

Before Cuba existed as an independent nation, before the first communist party emerged, or before anyone with the surname Castro arrived at what is now known as the Palace of the Revolution, US political groups were already proclaiming their interest in the island. Long before Maduro faced his first contested election in 2018, there were repeated attempts to oust the government or force political change in Venezuela, despite Chávez winning four presidential elections democratically and Maduro at least one. Control of the region is a historical imperial ambition that transcends any ideology, and Trumpism doesn't even bother to pretend that democratic legitimacy is the driving force behind its regime-change efforts.

Although the Trump administration has constructed a narrative of glorification and victory surrounding the events of Saturday, January 3, these events could be interpreted not as a sign of strength but rather of weakness and retreat. This is because it signifies a relinquishment of global influence that is difficult for the administration to maintain, and therefore a withdrawal to its sphere of influence: Latin America. The fact that the Trump administration relies on theatricality and psychological impact of its military operation, rather than diplomatic language or democratic "arguments" to justify it, indicates an intentional shift in its foreign policy, which no longer rests on international consensus. This explains the explicit interest in oil, the dismissal of the Venezuelan opposition, and the explicit adoption of the Monroe Doctrine.

The word that best describes this policy is imperialism , but it comes with a weariness stemming from its over-saturation by official propaganda. It occurs at a time of widespread frustration with the inertia and exhaustion from the effects of a prolonged polycrisis. Therefore, many view the illegal military operation as "liberating." This is a reality that cannot be ignored, unless one intends political suicide. 

It is important to note that the Monroe Doctrine, in its Trumpian version, does not represent the national interest of the United States nor the will of its people. A Reuters/Ipsos poll indicates that only a third of Americans approve of Maduro's illegal capture, and 72% are concerned about the country becoming too involved in Venezuela. Furthermore, voices within the Democratic Party reacted critically to the operation, prompting a response from the White House. One of its most popular figures today, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, called it a violation of federal and international law.

But no one with common sense in Latin America should sit idly by waiting for democrats to rein in an administration that despises and disregards even its own institutions and laws. To respond effectively, left-wing governments need democratic legitimacy and results. Legitimacy that comes from credible elections and governance that strengthens the relationship between left-wing parties and the citizenry. Claudia Sheinbaum is setting an example in this regard. Both this democratic legitimacy and the results must be evident to the public, and truly be so, not just appear to be.

But how can one mobilize sentiment in favor of sovereignty when, for many, it's a minor issue? Especially when food is increasingly scarce, while the perception grows that the country's political class lives in privilege. When Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro (El Cangrejo) frequently travels to Panama in private jets and is rumored to frequent luxury restaurants without paying the bill—and he's not the only one doing so. When one of Fidel Castro's sons is a golf champion in Varadero. When the president's family is included on official trips despite holding no public office, and when the children of leaders live comfortably abroad. And on top of all this, when there's a terrible lack of openness and transparency about it all. Subsidies and free services ended for ordinary citizens at the end of 2008; not so much for high-ranking officials.

Anyone who wants to talk about rescuing the country's project, while juggling to avoid the issue of corruption, what values ​​and moral compass do they truly intend to use to address the majority? How can one identify with a project that, in the popular imagination, is perceived as benefiting a political class rather than the people's well-being? There are also far too many instances of heavy-handed tactics, abuses of power, political inertia, and the policing of dissent. The State should not easily succumb to these authoritarian temptations, both those that came to us from the USSR and those that were already present at home.

It will be a pipe dream to generate political capital against Trumpism by invoking (necessary) sovereignty, when lives of privilege are plain for all to see. Without radical action against corruption among leaders, against authoritarianism, and in favor of genuine accountability, no one knows for sure how many share the sentiment of protecting national interests and perceive the Trump administration's disregard for sovereignty as a threat rather than a source of hope.

Too often, the Communist Party delegates matters that fall under its purview to the Ministry of the Interior, matters that, in Fidel Castro's time, had political solutions, even if not always the most appropriate ones. The current internal crisis is not only a product of unilateral coercive measures by the United States, but also of democratic shortcomings in the country's political apparatus and debts accumulated over time; warnings have been plentiful. 

With so much danger to the country's sovereignty, the worst political move is inaction, apathy, and complacency; or to turn critical citizens who want to contribute to the country's development into political enemies. Expanding democratic freedoms, releasing political prisoners, creating avenues for dissent, and implementing a comprehensive economic reform with a social focus to address inequalities are among the key issues Cuba faces today.

The threat of Trumpism to the island and the United States itself cannot be underestimated. It goes against all internal logic for Cuban authorities to embrace this change, but the question is not whether the rulers are comfortable with the level of reform needed, but rather whether they will respond to public demand. When a country is under aggression, the citizenry generally closes ranks with its government, but only if it feels that the government represents its interests. To confront Trumpism, the Cuban government must begin to look inward.

Spanish original   https://jovencuba.com/trumpismo-gobierno/

CIPI Paper by Philip Brenner on the End of Ideology in US Policy

 

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

 

Introduction

  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/.

 

CIPI Paper by Fulton Armstrong on Trump's Potential Moderation

Drivers That Could Force a Moderation of Trump’s “Maximum Pressure” Policies 

Fulton T. ARMSTRONG 

Center for Latin American and Latino Studies 

American University 

Washington, DC 

Thank you, Ambassador Cabañas and your team at CIPI, for inviting me again to this 

important conversación. 

The Trump Administration so far has faced little or no opposition to the continuation and 

deepening of its “maximum pressure” policies to achieve “regime change” in Cuba. Indeed, 

reactions have been subdued even as the Administration tightens its noose around the 

neck of Venezuela in a major escalation of efforts to tear down Cuba as part of what former 

National Security Advisor John Bolton, the original architect of the Administration’s current 

Latin America policy, called the “Troika of Tyranny.” But U.S. economic problems, 

competing foreign policy priorities, and other factors could mitigate those tactics. 

Note, please, my use of the word could. It is a weak word in analysis, but I feel it would be 

too risky to say will or even probably will at this juncture. That’s to some degree because 

this is the most opaque, non-consultative Administration that I have seen in my lifetime, 

which has included more than 30 years in an array of positions in the intelligence 

community, State Department, White House, and Congressional staffs. We have no honest 

information about its deliberations and are forced to analyze it from outside a high wall. The 

noises that we occasionally hear about what passes for policy debate are muffled, self

censored, and usually manipulative. But we outsiders aren’t dummies, and it’s not hard to 

see what the Administration has done, is doing, and intends to do. 

From the outside, we can reliably say that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who occupies 

the two top foreign policy positions, is the loudest of several voices on Latin America policy. 

The words of “Special Missions Envoy” Richard Grenell and Deputy Secretary of State 

Christopher Landau are audible through the wall at times, but it is Secretary Rubio – who 

has built his political career on opposition to the government of Cuba and in recent years 

Venezuela – who seems to have a strong head of steam. 

• He is buttressed by a State Department bureaucracy that has been largely Monroe

ist for decades, and almost always careerist. Many functionaries cringed when Bill 

Clinton apologized to Guatemala for U.S. excesses and Barack Obama declared the 

Monroe Doctrine dead and said Latin America and the Caribbean weren’t our 

“backyard” but rather our neighborhood of partners. Even the normalization process 

launched by President Obama and President Raúl Castro – which for two years was 

a bandwagon that many of our bureaucrats jumped on – was dropped like a hot 

potato the minute that political winds in Washington shifted. Our bureaucrats take 

good care of their careers. 

• Rubio is also supported by the beneficiaries of the many “democracy promotion” 

programs that he steered for years in the U.S. Senate. During my years as a senior 

professional advisor to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senators 

Menéndez and Rubio were briefed and given a say on many millions of dollars of 

grants and contracts that we were told were “too sensitive” for the committee’s 

Chairman, John Kerry, to be briefed on. Because of the clandestine and covert 

nature of the regime-change programs, we can’t know who most of these 

beneficiaries are and how many millions they have received – or even how much of 

the cash ever leaves Miami, Madrid, Prague, or Oslo – but we see their power in the 

use of “independent journalists” who flood us with information (real or fake) that 

serves their benefactors’ agenda. 

• The Administration also benefits from its essentially unchallenged domination of the 

narrative on Cuba, including its allegations about the so-called “sonic attacks,” 

“Chinese spy bases,” “human trafficking” in doctors, and other issues. That it 

pushes these memes and tropes is natural; all governments try to do it. Much of the 

Administration’s fake news is weak and verifiably wrong, but it is powerful because 

few in the political community, the media, and academia are willing to challenge it. 

Do a Google search of the names of Latin America experts who’ve challenged the 

fake narratives, and you’ll see the problem. Even in what we call “small town 

America,” these narratives are embedded in people’s minds – erasing the traditional 

common-sense reactions of people who wonder why we still have a 63-year-old 

embargo against a country that poses no threat. This is a big victory for the State 

Department, where bureaucrats ridicule the specialists who don’t challenge them. 

Another major plus for the Administration is that Cuba and Latin America rank low in U.S. 

people’s priorities, freeing it from significant oversight. Look for the reactions, even among 

our Latin America experts, about the Administration’s vigorous reassertion of the Monroe 

Doctrine – or what the White House is calling its “Trump Corollary” – and you’ll see why the 

Administration thinks it has a big green light to march on. Look at reactions to Washington’s 

punishment of Lula for not stopping the Brazilian courts’ necessary criminal action against 

Bolsonaro; its cash-on-the-barrelhead intervention in the Argentina elections; its sanctions 

against Colombia; its threats against Honduras if Trump’s preferred candidate didn’t win; 

its adulation of Bukele’s unconstitutional actions in El Salvador … and on and on goes the 

list. The U.S. media, as if starved to show the Administration that there’s at least one Latin 

American hero they love, have put a U.S.-nurtured political activist in Venezuela on a 

pedestal so high that they seem ignorant of the mis- and disinformation she has spread 

about cartels and “narcoterrorists” that don’t exist as well as the deep splits she has 

caused with other activists who have deeper experience than she. They also seem ignorant 

of the meaning for a Latin American politician to be urging U.S. military intervention in her 

country. 

Several factors, however, may begin to force the Administration to temper, or at least 

conceal, some of its zeal. These include major distractions at home and abroad. 

• I leave economic predictions to economists, but it’s not hard to see that the U.S. 

economy is not performing as the Administration claims it is. Biden’s inflation is now 

Trump’s. The lagging employment and income figures are Trump’s, as is the growing 

unhappiness about the gap between rich and poor. Biden’s trade policies may not 

have been brilliant, but Trump’s tariffs are now hitting home – so hard that he’s just 

authorized a $12 billion payout to farmers suffering from Chinese countermeasures. 

He has no response to the looming surge in healthcare costs. His answer on these 

matters has been to try to cook the data and commandeer the Federal Reserve, but 

that’s not going to increase productivity and put food on the table. At some point, 

he’ll be asked how much it costs for him to park the U.S. Navy off the coast of 

Venezuela for months on end. (Some estimates are $10 million per day.) And at 

some point, he’s going to have to face the music in the voting booth. The mid-term 

elections next year could (I repeat the word with embarrassment) clip his wings. 

• The Administration’s foreign policies aren’t doing too well either, which I believe in 

this case argues for greater caution rather than greater distraction. Efforts to muscle 

China on trade; find a lasting peace in Ukraine; enforce a ceasefire in Gaza and 

block Israel’s absorption of the West Bank; and coerce Western Europe to move in 

an authoritarian direction have so far failed. He boasted about bringing peace to the 

Cambodia-Thailand border, which is as tense as ever. He faces the same failure in 

the Rwanda-Congo conflict. Who knows what’s going to happen in Venezuela, but 

Trump has so far failed politically to calm the MAGA base concerned about another 

“forever war” and the fury over military decisions to kill survivors of missile attacks 

in the Caribbean. The investigations into those apparent war crimes are going to 

continue — and U.S. allies are going to move farther and farther away from us. 

Failure is often the driver of further distraction, but the low probability of success in 

Venezuela and, by extension, in Cuba suggests he’ll be careful (as long as he’s not 

seen as “TACO” – Trump Always Chickens Out). The most likely casualty would be 

Marco Rubio, who is the architect of the implementation of John Bolton’s “Troika of 

Tyranny” project. 

• The probability that Democratic, progressive, or liberal voices – whatever you want 

to call them – will surge and hold sway on issues like Cuba is low. It’s ironic that 

MAGA has demanded more accountability than they have so far. But if attacks on 

the current narratives do rise, they will reawaken common sense among previous 

supporters of normalization and trigger questioning of the “maximum pressure” 

policies. Democrats can’t agree on the time of day, let alone important policies, and 

many in the party establishment are compromised by the same donors as those 

influencing the Republicans. Indeed, where I grew up we would say the progressives 

“talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.” They urge policy shifts, but (as I assert above) 

they are loath to challenge the narratives upon which current policy is based. As I 

say, I don’t see such a reawakening as likely, but there’s at least a significant chance 

that, as the Administration’s promises fade, good journalists will tire of the fake 

news and demand of progressives a counterbalancing perspective. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t add that, while Cuba is indeed the object of the “maximum 

pressure” policies and is understandably preoccupied with efforts to maintain production 

and services that they target, the government probably could also better challenge the 

narratives that paralyze Washington debate. 

• One thing I observed over many years in Washington is that rightwing groups in the 

United States paralyze government deliberations on Cuba by chanting that “regime 

collapse” in Havana is imminent. They know that even clear-thinking policymakers 

are afraid to take up a politically challenging issue like Cuba when someone’s yelling 

in their ear that the “ripe fruit” is about to fall from the tree. Cuba’s problems with 

food, energy, and other basic services are feeding the Administration’s perception 

that its “maximum pressure” policies will succeed. (They did during the Biden 

Administration too, which tried to argue that the protests in July 2021 were some 

sort of watershed and that the song Patria y Vida would be the anthem of a new era.) 

• The playing field is not level – the U.S. is spending between $50 million and 

$60 million a year to run sophisticated social media and other campaigns pushing 

its narratives – but those of us who’ve watched Cuba in action for decades know 

that Cuba will accept the challenges. And we know that as Cuba overcomes its 

challenges, it can and will change the narrative. 

The drivers behind the Trump Administration’s “maximum pressure” and “regime change” 

policies are strong – we can’t deny it – but none of them is irreversible. 

CIPI Paper by John McAuliff on how to increase travel from the US to Cuba

 

Reinvigorating U.S. people to people travel to Cuba, adopting Viet Nam’s market model.

By John McAuliff, Fund for Reconciliation and Development

Edited and expanded from oral presentation at Programa de la XXIII Serie de conversaciones Cuba en la política exterior de EE.UU.: El Regreso de Trump: Impacto presente y futuro para Cuba.  Centro de Investigaciones de Politica Internacional (CIPI)  December 18, 2025

 

(Thanks to Amb Cabanas who contributed to and enjoyed the most positive moments of bilateral relations in decades, before or since.)

 

Everyone is aware of the very difficult situation for tourism in Cuba.[1]   The number of foreign visitors declined from 4.7 million in the peak year of 2018 to 2.2 million in 2024.  2025 is expected to be worse.  While competitors in the Caribbean recovered from the covid shock, Cuba’s market has not.

A significant cause is harsher application of the US embargo.  While there are still legal categories permitting American travelers, large scale commercial movement is impossible as long as cruises and use of State owned hotels is banned.  That was a maximum pressure policy initiated by the first Trump administration and not corrected by Biden.

The absurd listing of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism discourages visitors from Europe who lose their ESTA visa waiver to enter the US for ten years if they travel to Cuba. 

The objective conditions in Cuba of power failures, limits on food and debilitating mosquito borne diseases have also had a depressing effect on conventional holiday tourism.   The harsh treatment of both moderate and extremist protestors in 2021 and conflicts between cultural dissidents and authorities also diminish enthusiasm for Cuba as a destination.  The same thing happened with China for two to three years after Tiananmen Square

Cuba is making efforts to reverse the trend.  A significant step is that foreign companies will be able to lease as well as manage hotels.   In theory, they will have more normal corporate authority to directly hire staff and to invest in improved facilities.  A conversation with a staff member of Sol Melia suggests the major chains will be cautious and see how the new system works on one or two test cases.

I am approaching this problem on both a macro and micro level.

 

A.      Macro

Based on my decades long experience with Viet Nam, it is worth considering what the impact would be on travel if Cuba took bold experimental steps towards a market economy in only this sector.  When I first began organizing trips for professors and other professionals in the mid 1980s, Viet Nam like Cuba treated travel as a state monopoly.  Vietnam Tourism organized all group tours and owned and controlled all the hotels, not even allowing management by foreign companies.  The first signs of change were private mini hotels on the fringes of Ha Noi.  The doi moi market reforms in 1986 led to legal and administrative changes that allowed foreigners, both Asian and western, as well as Vietnamese investors, to build and own hotels.  Large international companies created luxury branded properties.   Vietnamese investors competed in this market and dominated smaller scale two or three star offerings for backpackers, overseas nationals and other budget conscious travelers.

This graph created by Chat GP illustrates the dramatic change in revenue share between the state and private sector in less than twenty years.  Notable is that domestic private has a greater value share than foreign ownership in the initial and later stages

 

 

The number of foreign tourists coming to Viet Nam.  Data not available before 1995.

 

In current dollars, the value of international tourism, marked by circles, and percent of national GDP, marked by squares, until COVID

Vietnamese entrepreneurs created travel agencies, tour operators and specialized services supplemented by foreigners with niche businesses like SCUBA shops and tours.  The Vietnamese Union of Friendship Organizations, the counterpart of ICAP, still organizes tour programs that focus on friendship and many kinds of long term institutional cooperation.  US veterans of the American war and of the peace movement are an important although diminishing special audience.

The growth of international arrivals in Viet Nam demonstrates the roaring success of a free market methodology from 250,000 in 1990 to 19.1 million by November of this year.   (Note that Viet Nam has ten times the population of Cuba so the ratio of visitors is less.)

If Cuba chose to introduce a similar open market system for the travel sector, it could attract substantial foreign investment, management and training skills, and a growing number of tourists.  US companies excluded by the embargo would complain more strongly to our government about long term competitive disadvantage that will become more serious than when the only benefit for European companies is management contracts.  If Cuba sold rather that leased selected hotels to trusted European partners, under current US law and regulations they could become available for American tour groups and independent travelers.

 

B.       Micro

Turning to the micro level, there is a small step that has been officially rejected[2], but can be taken easily and quickly, the licensing of tour guides as cuenta propistas and of microenterprises in the travel sector. There is already a gray market of guides who operate privately, many of whom formerly worked for state companies.   In 2021 an informal association of guides made a written proposal to the Ministries of Tourism and Labor that was rejected.[3]  Symptomatically all but two members of the original organizing committee now live abroad, a loss of badly needed entrepreneurial talent and energy.

If cuenta propista guides and microenterprise travel companies were legally recognized, it could have a significant impact on US visitors organized by independent travel agencies and home based agents, about 15% of the US holiday travel industry.  Their small scale does not easily fit with Cuba’s state companies, but their cumulative impact for the country’s economy can be significant.  Legal status for their Cuban counterparts and a channel to transfer pre-payments are essential requirements for serious business.  The ability to develop mutually trusted business relationships that match the agendas and styles of senders and receivers is an inducement for additional visitors and repeat trips.  Direct company to company collaboration between Americans and Cubans will generate practical ways to overcome current objective hardships and will increase tax revenue.

Private tour guides became active in Viet Nam from the late 1980s.   In 2001 a legal licensing mechanism was adopted requiring educational qualifications and tourism training that currently registers 26,309 guides for international visitors.

 

C.       Changing bilateral parameters

Finally, I want to address the policy problem that constrains a large economic impact of US tourists.   Attention should be given to the unusual character of the Trump Administration.  The first half of Trump One witnessed little change in the Obama policies on travel.  It was only when John Bolton became National Security Adviser (April 2018 to September 2019) that his long animus to the Cuban revolution combined with the political agenda of Senator Marco Rubio and Mauricio Claver-Carone to devastate travel through maximum pressure.  Cruises were forbidden so abruptly on June 5, 2019 that ships had to be rerouted.  Trump now despises and distrusts Bolton and is seeking revenge with controversial criminal indictments.  It should also not be forgotten that before he became a candidate for President Trump sent an exploratory team to Cuba that had very positive conversations about golf courses and resorts.  

If anyone could exercise unilateral power to end the embargo, it is Donald Trump.  Robert Muse outlined the legal argument in 2020.[4]  Marco Rubio as an ambitious and opportunist Secretary of State who hopes to succeed Trump, could not oppose him.  An inducement to this transactional President, would be to allow the Trump Corporation to lease or purchase Cuba’s new mega hotel on La Rampa.   It would discomfit most of your American friends and many Cubans to see the name Trump on the top of the tallest building in Havana, but it could be only a temporary burden. 

I want to make another Viet Nam comparison.  Just  before we went to Viet Nam to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of peace and reunification, Damien Cave, who also has a history covering Cuba, wrote a long article about a $1.5 billion dollar Trump golf resort to be built near Ha Noi.[5]  Many Vietnamese were upset because the project ignored normal approval procedures, including environment restrictions, and because it will replace valuable privately owned farmland.  But from the viewpoint of government leaders, good will from the all transactional Trump could help with upcoming high priority tariff negotiations.

An even greater and more controversial inducement could involve Venezuela.   President Trump does not want on his record thousands of civilian deaths and endless war entailed by regime change.  However he needs  a symbolic victory over President Maduro given how much he has committed US forces and prestige.   From a Venezuelan perspective, what is more important, the titular position of Maduro whose electoral victory is doubted by significant friends of Cuba or the preservation of peace and of a sovereign functioning government?  If Cuba used its historic ties with Venezuela’s government and military to help find a transitional diplomatic solution reflecting current realities, it would be reasonable for it to insist on as significant a change in US policy on Cuba, i.e. the end of the embargo.

 

Additional resources

"Travel:  Symbol of and Vehicle for Change"  by John McAuliff                                                   Edited Spanish version presented to Congreso de Pensamiento, Holguin, Cuba 10/23/19   (revised and updated from talk presented at XVI Edicion de la Serie de Conversaciones Cuba en la Politica Exterior de los Estados Unidos de America del 13 - 15 de diciembre de 2017 Centro de Investigaciones de Politica Internacional (CIPI)  Instituto Superior de Relaciones Internacionales  (ISRI)

“People to People Diplomacy:   A step, not a solution”  Presented at Ultimo Jueves panel sponsored by Revista Temas, Havana, July 18, 2019  https://cubapeopletopeople.blogspot.com/2019/09/people-to-people-diplomacy-diplomacia.html

Wikipedia Summary of Current Situation of Tourism in Viet Nam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Vietnam

“Tourism & Economic Development in Vietnam” by Bee Chin NG   School of Social Science Institution for Asian Studies The University of Birmingham, June 2008 https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/1783/1/Ng08MPhil.pdf

“Tourism development in Vietnam: New strategy for a sustainable pathway” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344416150_Tourism_development_in_Vietnam_New_strategy_for_a_sustainable_pathway

“From Deadly Enemies to Comprehensive Strategic Partners: The Twenty Year Transformation of US Viet Nam Relations, Potential Implications for US-Cuba Relations”  by John McAuliff Programa del evento XXI Edición de la Serie de Conversaciones “Cuba en la Política Exterior de Estados Unidos de América”.  El Centro de Investigaciones de Política Internacional (CIPI) con el coauspicio del Instituto Superior de Relaciones Internacionales (ISRI) Hotel Nacional, Havana, December 17-19, 2024                                                      https://vnpeacecomm.blogspot.com/2024/12/the-path-to-us-viet-nam-normalization.html

“Reconciliation Between Peace and Normalization, 1975-1995”   Prepared for US Institute of Peace Dialogue on War Legacies and Peace, October 13, 2022  by John McAuliff    https://vnpeacecomm.blogspot.com/2022/10/mcauliff-paper-for-usip-on.html

 

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[1] “Cuban tourism industry flounders as sunseekers look elsewhere”  By Marc Frank     February 18, 2022    https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/cuban-tourism-industry-flounders-sunseekers-look-elsewhere-2022-02-18/

[2] Cuba approves long-sought legal status for private businesses 

By Marc Frank  June 2, 2021

“Resolution 132/2021, published in the extraordinary Gaceta Oficial 46, indicates that national travel agencies are the only ones authorized to carry out procedures such as the issuance, reception and service of tourists, the representation of foreign tour operators, and the design and marketing of tourist packages.”

 

[3] https://cubapeopletopeople.blogspot.com/2021/10/arguement-for-tour-guide-privatization.html

 

[4] “The president has the constitutional power to unilaterally terminate the embargo on Cuba”

Robert L. Muse  |  October 8, 2020                                        https://cubapeopletopeople.blogspot.com/2022/02/presidential-power-to-end-embargo.html

[5] "Why Vietnam Ignored Its Own Laws to Fast-Track a Trump Family Golf Complex," by Damien Cave, May 25, 2025

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/world/asia/trump-vietnam-golf-project.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-k8.McQG.TdUN0fE3dGva&smid=url-share