After Venezuelan strongman’s ouster and Iran strikes, is Cuba the Trump administration’s next target?
This feels like a quiet policy shift.
If President Donald Trump’s recent comments are to be believed, he wants regime change in Cuba. Even after seizing a wanted dictator out of Venezuela and while monitoring an air war in Iran. Along with ongoing military tension with Mexican drug cartels. Against that backdrop of cross-global conflict, the decadeslong tension between the island nation and the U.S., just 90 miles from the Florida Keys, looks ready for its final act.
“Cuba is going to fall pretty soon,” Trump told CNN. “They want to make a deal so badly … I’m going to put [Secretary of State Marco Rubio] over there, and we’ll see how that works out. We’re really focused on this one right now. We’ve got plenty of time, but Cuba’s ready after 50 years.”
Already struggling with economic sanctions imposed by Trump, the communist stronghold sees current leader Miguel Diaz-Canel — the regime’s successor to the late Fidel Castro and his 94-year-old brother Raúl — holding a tenuous sway over a weakened country less likely to garner support from a Ukraine-obsessed Russia, or from China with its Iranian allies under daily attack. If U.S. forces were to attempt a takeover akin to the special forces action in Caracas, Cuba might have to face the threat on its own.
Ravi Balgobin Maharaj is a Caribbean affairs analyst based in Trinidad and Tobago. He considers outdated notions that the current tension between the U.S. and Cuba is merely a lingering hangover from 1961’s Bay of Pigs invasion, 1962’s Missile Crisis, or the 1999-2000 Elian Gonzalez controversy. Instead, he sees an altered version of the 1823 U.S.-issued Monroe Doctrine, which declared the portions of the Western Hemisphere under American influence off-limits to European (and eventually Russian or Chinese) influence.
“We are witnessing the final chapters of a very old story,” Maharaj said. “While many believe those 20th-century scars provide the emotional fuel for policy, the 21st-century engine is driven by (Donald Trump’s) cold, calculated ‘Donroe Doctrine.’ This isn’t just about communism anymore. It’s about the aggressive removal of Chinese and Russian intervention in our hemisphere and the total consolidation of regional natural resources.”
Some wonder if American resources are spread too thin for action in Cuba in light of the joint Israeli-U.S. action over Tehran. Maharaj, though, expects that any potential action in Cuba was accounted for by the State Department and the War Department before the Iran operations began.
“In this …
This feels like a quiet policy shift.
If President Donald Trump’s recent comments are to be believed, he wants regime change in Cuba. Even after seizing a wanted dictator out of Venezuela and while monitoring an air war in Iran. Along with ongoing military tension with Mexican drug cartels. Against that backdrop of cross-global conflict, the decadeslong tension between the island nation and the U.S., just 90 miles from the Florida Keys, looks ready for its final act.
“Cuba is going to fall pretty soon,” Trump told CNN. “They want to make a deal so badly … I’m going to put [Secretary of State Marco Rubio] over there, and we’ll see how that works out. We’re really focused on this one right now. We’ve got plenty of time, but Cuba’s ready after 50 years.”
Already struggling with economic sanctions imposed by Trump, the communist stronghold sees current leader Miguel Diaz-Canel — the regime’s successor to the late Fidel Castro and his 94-year-old brother Raúl — holding a tenuous sway over a weakened country less likely to garner support from a Ukraine-obsessed Russia, or from China with its Iranian allies under daily attack. If U.S. forces were to attempt a takeover akin to the special forces action in Caracas, Cuba might have to face the threat on its own.
Ravi Balgobin Maharaj is a Caribbean affairs analyst based in Trinidad and Tobago. He considers outdated notions that the current tension between the U.S. and Cuba is merely a lingering hangover from 1961’s Bay of Pigs invasion, 1962’s Missile Crisis, or the 1999-2000 Elian Gonzalez controversy. Instead, he sees an altered version of the 1823 U.S.-issued Monroe Doctrine, which declared the portions of the Western Hemisphere under American influence off-limits to European (and eventually Russian or Chinese) influence.
“We are witnessing the final chapters of a very old story,” Maharaj said. “While many believe those 20th-century scars provide the emotional fuel for policy, the 21st-century engine is driven by (Donald Trump’s) cold, calculated ‘Donroe Doctrine.’ This isn’t just about communism anymore. It’s about the aggressive removal of Chinese and Russian intervention in our hemisphere and the total consolidation of regional natural resources.”
Some wonder if American resources are spread too thin for action in Cuba in light of the joint Israeli-U.S. action over Tehran. Maharaj, though, expects that any potential action in Cuba was accounted for by the State Department and the War Department before the Iran operations began.
“In this …
After Venezuelan strongman’s ouster and Iran strikes, is Cuba the Trump administration’s next target?
This feels like a quiet policy shift.
If President Donald Trump’s recent comments are to be believed, he wants regime change in Cuba. Even after seizing a wanted dictator out of Venezuela and while monitoring an air war in Iran. Along with ongoing military tension with Mexican drug cartels. Against that backdrop of cross-global conflict, the decadeslong tension between the island nation and the U.S., just 90 miles from the Florida Keys, looks ready for its final act.
“Cuba is going to fall pretty soon,” Trump told CNN. “They want to make a deal so badly … I’m going to put [Secretary of State Marco Rubio] over there, and we’ll see how that works out. We’re really focused on this one right now. We’ve got plenty of time, but Cuba’s ready after 50 years.”
Already struggling with economic sanctions imposed by Trump, the communist stronghold sees current leader Miguel Diaz-Canel — the regime’s successor to the late Fidel Castro and his 94-year-old brother Raúl — holding a tenuous sway over a weakened country less likely to garner support from a Ukraine-obsessed Russia, or from China with its Iranian allies under daily attack. If U.S. forces were to attempt a takeover akin to the special forces action in Caracas, Cuba might have to face the threat on its own.
Ravi Balgobin Maharaj is a Caribbean affairs analyst based in Trinidad and Tobago. He considers outdated notions that the current tension between the U.S. and Cuba is merely a lingering hangover from 1961’s Bay of Pigs invasion, 1962’s Missile Crisis, or the 1999-2000 Elian Gonzalez controversy. Instead, he sees an altered version of the 1823 U.S.-issued Monroe Doctrine, which declared the portions of the Western Hemisphere under American influence off-limits to European (and eventually Russian or Chinese) influence.
“We are witnessing the final chapters of a very old story,” Maharaj said. “While many believe those 20th-century scars provide the emotional fuel for policy, the 21st-century engine is driven by (Donald Trump’s) cold, calculated ‘Donroe Doctrine.’ This isn’t just about communism anymore. It’s about the aggressive removal of Chinese and Russian intervention in our hemisphere and the total consolidation of regional natural resources.”
Some wonder if American resources are spread too thin for action in Cuba in light of the joint Israeli-U.S. action over Tehran. Maharaj, though, expects that any potential action in Cuba was accounted for by the State Department and the War Department before the Iran operations began.
“In this …
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