While the Trump administration scrambles for an exit strategy in Iran, a second conflict that’s brewing just off southern Florida also lacks a clear endgame.
For the last four months, the administration has been turning up the pressure on the Cuban government with a fuel imports blockade that the United Nations warned has left the country on the edge of collapse.
Reports from the Caribbean island show a deteriorating quality of life that has grown more dire with every passing week. Blackouts are frequent and can last up to 12 hours a day in the capital, Havana.
No part of the island is immune from power outages, leading to delays in medical procedures and a virtual halt to public transportation. Even safe drinking water has become harder to access as aging pumping systems going offline from the lack of electricity. A carton of eggs now costs the same as a retiree’s monthly pension.
Living in Cuba means experiencing what author Leonardo Padura recently described as a “near-catatonic state.”
The blockade would typically be at the center of a carefully orchestrated public campaign.
In a typical administration, the blockade would be at the center of a carefully orchestrated public campaign. Usually there’s a sequence of events: The president would have given a big speech, maybe even in prime time or before Congress, while his top foreign policy staffers would be answering questions on major news shows. Talking points would have gone out to allies outside the administration while sympathetic think tanks spun up white papers.
Even if you disagreed, you would know the administration’s theory of the case and be able to quibble or muster opposition to it.
That’s simply not happening. Cuba policy is being drowned out by the Iran conflict and a frenetic news cycle — the White House ballroom! Spirit Airlines! gerrymandering! deportations! — that’s enough to make me question whether the Old World should have just stayed put. Meanwhile, the administration has yet to release a basic strategic road map or even a clear set of demands.
President Donald Trump has brought up Cuba more frequently in recent weeks, but it’s usually been while predicting an easy victory similar to the nighttime raid that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro earlier this year. Last week, he suggested that the USS Abraham Lincoln could be deployed just off the Cuban coast to force a quick surrender. Before that, he said he would have “the honor of taking Cuba.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who would normally be a top surrogate making the case on the issue, said Tuesday only that there is “an unacceptable status quo in Cuba” that will be addressed at a later date.
“Their economic model doesn’t work, and the people in charge can’t fix it,” Rubio said at a White House press conference, labeling the Cuban leadership “incompetent communists.”
Hours earlier, he stood for a photo with Gen. Francis Donovan, head of U.S. Southern Command, posed pointedly in front of a map of Cuba. For a man who built a career on a crusade against the regime of Fidel Castro, the gesture was about as subtle as a sledgehammer. It was also provocatively vague. Was the photo a prelude to a ground invasion? A carrier-led show of force? Or a return to the absurd cloak-and-dagger era of the Cold War with exploding seashells and poison pens? There are no reliable answers to these questions.
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Before the Trump administration’s recent efforts, Cuba was already destitute. Decades of mismanagement have yielded a sclerotic economy that mixes central planning with a small dose of private entrepreneurship. The U.S. trade embargo — in effect since 1960— hasn’t helped, while a repressive police state overseen by geriatric men with first-hand or family ties to the Cuban Revolution stunted the country’s overall development. Though Miguel Díaz-Canel is ostensibly Cuba’s president, Fidel’s brother Raúl Castro is widely viewed as the real power behind the throne.
This is not the first time Trump has tried leaving a footprint in Cuba. In 1998 he sent consultants to explore a hotel deal, though it violated strict sanctions barring Americans from conducting business with the Cuban government.
A quarter century later, the Trump administration is reportedly seeking economic and political reforms meant to loosen the Cuban government’s tight grip on its citizens. In April, U.S. diplomats met with Cuban officials bearing a list of demands that included fostering a private sector that attracts foreign investment, the release of political prisoners and compensation for U.S. companies and citizens that had their property seized in the early 1960s.
The Cuban government has responded by re-running a playbook that’s showing abundant signs of wear and tear. It’s staging large demonstrations with anti-imperialist slogans, vowing that it will never be an American colony and it’s capable of defending itself against any U.S. military aggression.
Congress is already weighing in. Last week, the Senate rejected a war powers resolution that would have tied Trump’s hands from carrying out military action against Cuba without an explicit green light from lawmakers. Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, a sponsor of the resolution, argued that Trump wants to topple the Cuban government simply for the sake of toppling it and warned of cementing power in the hands of hard-liners.
“He’s done regime change in two nations, and hard-liners are still running things. So it’s not like he has produced a Venezuela for Venezuelans or an Iran for Iranians,” Kaine told me shortly after the vote. “The U.S. has a very poor track record of successfully executing regime change, particularly in the Americas.”
Cuba is one of the U.S.’ smallest foes, measuring about one-fifteenth the size of Iran, with roughly the same number of residents as North Carolina. But the current regime has managed to foil the well-laid plans of 13 presidents dating back to Dwight Eisenhower.
Without a plan, Trump may go down in history as the 14th president the Cuban regime outlasts.
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Joseph Zeballos-Roig
Joseph Zeballos-Roig is a reporter who has covered economic policy and politics for Semafor, Business Insider and Quartz, among other publications.