Trump’s Cuba ambitions, briefly explained

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Welcome to The Logoff: The Trump administration isn’t letting up the pressure on Cuba.

What’s happening? After months of threats from the Trump administration, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said on Friday that his government was holding talks with the US to find “solutions” to increasingly dire conditions on the island. 

It’s unclear what might come out of those talks, but it’s the latest sign the Trump administration is serious about following through on its recent rhetoric.

Why Cuba? This is an ideological project for Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Earlier this week, the Atlantic’s Vivian Salama told Vox that Rubio had made it a “lifelong mission” to topple Cuba’s Communist regime. 

It’s also an unsurprising extension of the so-called “Donroe Doctrine” — an assertion of US regional hegemony, backed by military force — that President Donald Trump proclaimed after US forces successfully captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January.

What’s the context? Cuba has been in a difficult spot for years; in 2024, it experienced a nationwide blackout after its electrical grid collapsed — a problem that has recurred since then. But since January, a de facto US blockade has made conditions far worse, choking off all fuel to the island already suffering from economic crisis.

At the time, Trump posted on Truth Social that “THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”

What’s the big picture? US-Cuba talks don’t mean the possibility of more drastic action is off the table. For example, the US and Iran were still engaged in nuclear negotiations when the war began last month. Salama, of the Atlantic, also told Vox that some Trump officials backing military action believe it’s “like ripping off a Band-Aid. You get them done quickly as a one-two-three punch.”

Whatever the US does, conditions inside Cuba may mean events come to a head sooner rather than later.

And with that, it’s time to log off…

Winter may be on its way out, but it still snowed in Washington, DC, on Thursday, so that means I can share this episode from Vox’s Unexplainable podcast all about how snow forms and its various cool properties (plus some snow mysteries we still don’t know the answers to). 

Thanks for reading, have a great weekend, and we’ll see you back here on Monday!