Cuba and the U.S. Are Bogged Down in History
Cuba and the U.S. Are Bogged Down in History
Heavy-handed efforts to coerce change in Cuba are liable to backfire.
Murals of Che Guevara and posters of Fidel Castro proclaiming the Cuban Revolution’s success remain a common sight on the streets of Havana. The Cuban regime’s commitment to anti-colonial internationalism is equally visible, evident for instance in schools named after the Angolan liberation movement and memorials dedicated to Fidel’s anti-apartheid friend, Nelson Mandela. It is a country frozen in its revolutionary past and nostalgic for the Cold War days when the small island nation punched far above its geopolitical weight.
The streets of Cuba reflect this stasis. Havana is eerily barren, and the numbers tell a stark story: Roughly 18 percent of the Cuban population left the island between 2022 and 2023. For most modern countries, this catastrophic demographic change would signal a need for internal reforms. But Cuba is not an ordinary country. It is a frozen republic that is trapped in its own internal contradictions and revolutionary relics.
When I visited Cuba in January 2024, there was little traffic, and the streets were absent of people. Cheap pizza was the mainstay on local restaurant menus. Meat was a luxury. Apart from local herbal remedies, the shelves of a local pharmacy were barren.
Much of the regime’s legitimacy is based on nostalgia. Cuba’s once-proud healthcare system is in tatters. Cuban doctors earn more money driving taxis for tourists. Buildings are in ruins. Garbage overflows onto the streets, leading to an epidemic of mosquito-driven diseases on the island. Even Cuba’s once iconic sugarcane industry is in steep decline.
It is ludicrous to think that this deeply impoverished island nation, with its Soviet-era military equipment and massive fuel shortages, is a real threat to U.S national security. Nonetheless, that is what the Trump administration wants the American public to believe. On January 29, the White House ludicrously called the Cuban government “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to the U.S.
Much like Cuba’s anachronistic condition, U.S policy towards Cuba is trapped in a museum of absurdities and Cold War–style red-baiting. It pretends that the Cuba of today is the same one that hosted Soviet nuclear missile sites in 1962 and almost dragged the world into nuclear armageddon.
Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and chief architect of the Trump administration’s Cuba policy, seems hell-bent on overthrowing the government in Havana. Triumphant after the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, Rubio is intent on putting the final nail in the coffin of the Cuban Revolution.
The Trump administration has implemented a total blockade of foreign oil into Cuba, which has halted public transportation on the island. Farmers cannot get their produce to market. University students cannot attend their classes. The already debilitated country has come to a standstill. But if the goal of this oil blockade is to convince the Cuban people to rise up and overthrow the leadership, it will fail.
While Rubio makes it no mystery that he hopes to bring down the communist regime in Havana, the Trump administration should be careful of what might come next. Although the communists in Havana have long been a nuisance to Washington, Cuba could be worse. It is not Haiti. If the U.S continues to block the import of oil into the island, however, the U.S risks turning Cuba into a Spanish-speaking Haiti only 90 miles off its coast.
Unlike Haiti, Cuba does not have a gang violence problem, drug issues, or a child trafficking problem. While the contemporary condition of Cuba is depressing, it is not a completely failed state. For example, the Cuban government has long taken a hard stance on drugs. In 2024, the U.S State Department stated that Cuba “is not a major consumer, producer, or transshipment point for illicit drugs.” In 2025, Cuba arrested and extradited Chinese fentanyl kingpin, Zhi Dong Zhang, to Mexico and then the U.S to face trial. The unpopular fact is that Cuba has been a vital security partner to the U.S government in combatting regional drug trafficking.
Moreover, unlike Venezuela’s Delcy Rodriguez, there is no immediate replacement for Miguel Díaz-Canel, the former engineer and present-day leader of Cuba. As unsavory as he is, there is no one who can easily step in for him. He is more or less a figurehead for the old guard political elite and military hardliners in the Cuban Communist Party, which really runs the show. Unlike Maduro’s Venezuela, Cuba’s system resembles a collective communist leadership. Replacing the leader at the top will not change the entire direction of the party’s apparatus.
Equally importantly, Cubans have already demonstrated a willingness to leave the island. The Trump administration risks further erosion of its already low public approval should images of Cubans adrift on makeshift rafts in the shark-infested Florida Straits find their way onto television screens across America. Will the Trump administration then deport these refugees back to poverty-stricken Cuba?
Instead of further suffocating an already struggling island, the Trump administration should reconsider its Cuba strategy. If Trump truly seeks to be remembered as a president of peace, he should finish what Barack Obama began.
Normalizing diplomatic relations and lifting the oil blockade would not reward repression; it would empower the Cuban people. Greater economic engagement would create space for civil society and increase public pressure for meaningful reform. At the same time, it would narrow Havana’s ability to scapegoat the U.S. embargo for its own structural inefficiencies and policy failures.
Improved relations would also advance U.S. security interests. Expanded cooperation with Cuban authorities could strengthen maritime interdiction and anti–drug trafficking efforts in the Caribbean, reducing the flow of illicit narcotics, including fentanyl, toward American shores.
A strategy rooted in engagement rather than isolation would better serve both the Cuban people and U.S. national interests. Unfortunately, Rubio seems intent on making Cuba into another Haiti.
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