Last Friday, in a nationally televised address, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez confirmed what had been circulating as a rumor in multiple media outlets for weeks: the Cuban government had held talks with U.S. officials. When the announcement was made, the president stated, efforts were already underway to set an agenda for bilateral engagement and to identify areas of mutual concern, along with possible ways to address them.
For a population battered by one of the harshest crises in its history, the news was undoubtedly a glimmer of hope. Many remember the Obama “thaw” years — the cruise ships, the surge of American tourists, the Rolling Stones concert — and now find themselves dreaming of U.S. investments that could finally bring an end to the blackouts, of northern capital breathing new life into tourism, of Walmart, Starbucks, and McDonald’s taking over every corner, or of shelves overflowing with merchandise. Yet it would not take a political science expert to grasp how limited the current talks may actually be.
Back in 2014, when Raúl Castro Ruz — who was then president of the Councils of State and Ministers — announced to the population that a process of normalizing relations with Washington had begun, the circumstances at home, in the region, and around the world were entirely different.
As of his first term (2009–2013), Obama had reversed the travel and remittance restrictions on the island imposed by George W. Bush under the framework of his Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. From the outset of his administration, the Democrat moved away from the hardline approach of his Republican predecessor, reestablishing diplomatic engagement in areas of shared interest and even telling various heads of state in the hemisphere that he wanted a fresh start with Cuba. That pragmatic approach won Obama an extraordinarily high share of the Cuban-American vote in Florida — a telling sign of the growing weight within that community of those who had emigrated from Cuba after the 1980s, a generation more concerned with living standards on the island and their families’ welfare than with political allegiances.
But the historic shift represented by the opening pursued during his second term (2013–2017) was not merely the product of the marginalization of the most hardline sectors within the Cuban diaspora in the United States. The regional climate at the time also played a major role: Obama’s gestures of goodwill toward Cuba — reestablishing diplomatic ties, reopening embassies, easing sanctions, and personally inviting Raúl Castro to the Seventh Summit of the Americas — were no coincidence. At a time when Latin America was dominated by left-leaning, anti-imperialist, and Bolivarian movements, the overture to Cuba was seen as an essential step toward mending frayed relations across the hemisphere. Cuba and the opening were key elements of Obama’s hemispheric New Deal. Today, unfortunately, the situation has changed.
One must remember: it was Trump — acting out of gratitude for the support, however inconsequential it may have been, of the most reactionary sectors of the Cuban-American community in his 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton — who erased every accomplishment of the Obama years. Upon taking office in 2017 — the start of his first term (2017–2021) in the Oval Office — the former businessman adopted an unprecedented hardline stance toward Cuba. He imposed travel restrictions, halted transactions with a wide range of Cuban entities, reduced the consular presence at the U.S. embassy, and suspended both the Family Reunification Program and the Refugee Admissions Program.
Then, in 2019, the Trump administration unleashed a maximum-pressure campaign to choke off Cuba’s main sources of hard currency, scare away foreign investors, and disrupt the island’s energy supply.
By then, as American political scientist William LeoGrande argued in a 2024 article for the journal Temas, a substantial segment of the Cuban diaspora had shifted away from supporting better relations and dialogue with Havana. Under Obama, Cuban arrivals from the 1980 and 1994 migration waves had consistently voted Democratic, and their views on Cuba were notably moderate. Under Trump — drawn in by his McCarthyist rhetoric — these same constituencies underwent a dramatic realignment, swinging toward the Republican Party and embracing a far more reactionary agenda.
In 2018, a poll indicated that support for the embargo among the Cuban-American community stood at a narrow 51 percent. By 2020, a survey by the same institution showed that support for the policy had jumped to 60 percent. By 2022, it had risen further to 63 percent. Meanwhile, data gathered from Cubans who had arrived in the United States during that period pointed to widespread rejection of Biden’s Cuba policy — even though his stance remained largely unchanged from that of his predecessor.
At the same time, things were shifting across the hemisphere. Venezuela, Cuba’s main ally in the region, was dealing with the fallout from Chávez’s death, a strengthening opposition, and a growing wave of international sanctions. In countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Ecuador, the political tide turned: the left, which since the turn of the century had advanced integrationist efforts to challenge U.S. hegemony, was displaced by a right-wing bloc closely aligned with Washington. It was in this environment that Trump’s Cuba policy found fertile ground and willing allies.
Only in recent years has the left managed to carve out a modest space once again on Latin America’s political map. That resurgence, however, has not led to a repositioning in defense of Cuban sovereignty. Quite the opposite: this new left, markedly more conservative, has adopted a critical stance toward the Cuban government, which, along with Venezuela, has become something of a political liability in a region growing increasingly hostile to progressive movements.
By the time Donald Trump was sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2025, he found a political landscape highly conducive to sustaining his hostile stance toward Cuba. While the island was far from central to his foreign policy, his administration nonetheless moved swiftly against it. In January, he reversed Biden’s decision to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. By June 2025, he had signed a memorandum dismantling the modest relief measures Biden had managed to implement. In September, he escalated further, ordering his administration to find ways to tighten restrictions on travel and financial dealings with the island.
Since January of this year, Cuba has become a recurring theme in statements by both the president and his inner circle. In the wake of the military intervention in Venezuela, for example, he demanded, in threatening terms, that the Cuban government reach an immediate agreement. Twenty-three days after Nicolás Maduro’s abduction, he signed an executive order declaring Cuba an unusual and extraordinary threat, while also imposing an energy blockade.
Amid widespread economic paralysis and a deepening crisis driven by the tightened embargo, the occupant of the White House seemed to leave the door open to dialogue. Outlets such as Politico, Axios, and USA Today, citing information obtained from officials, ran stories about talks and possible deals. In my view, those leaks were deliberate and intentional on Washington’s part.
That apparent shift, however, was only temporary. While the American president has never explicitly ruled out the possibility of engagement with Havana, neither has he abandoned his interventionist and adversarial rhetoric toward the Cuban government, as noted above. Consider last Monday. Trump told the press: “I do believe I’ll be … having the honor of taking Cuba. That’s a big honor. Taking Cuba in some form, I mean, whether I free it, take it. Think I can do anything I want with it.” Around the same time, The New York Times reported that Washington was seeking the removal of President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, the first step, according to the paper, in pushing through a series of changes to Cuba’s economic model.
On Friday, March 13, just hours after the Cuban government confirmed the talks, Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration was considering the possibility of turning Cuba into a U.S. protectorate. The strategy was a campaign of sustained suffocation designed to force the island into total dependence on Washington in the years ahead. The report also said that there was interest in replacing the Cuban head of state.
The signal being sent by the U.S. administration, namely its evident ambition to reduce Cuba to satellite status and impose a tutelary government reminiscent of Venezuela, reduces to almost nothing any prospect of meaningful outcomes from the ongoing talks.
Add to that the unfavorable climate within an increasingly reactionary diaspora, as well as the contradiction that any deal or understanding, if it does not include a transition of power on the island, would create for the current secretary of state. Rubio has long championed the harshest approach toward Cuba, which makes him a fierce opponent of any engagement. Beyond that, he has also floated the possibility of running for president in 2028. Unless he distances himself from the administration’s hardliners in the near future, any move to ease pressure would be seen as weakness and, given the reactionary lobbies whose support he may need, as politically suicidal. This effectively makes Rubio an almost insurmountable obstacle to any genuine dialogue.
In its approach to Cuba, the United States appears more interested in advancing its longstanding aims through a strategy similar to the one pursued in Venezuela. As the economic squeeze intensifies and interventionist rhetoric is accompanied by a stream of threats, Trump remains consistent in his use of leverage, a strategy he has already employed against Venezuela, Iran, and other geopolitical adversaries. To believe that a politician like him, one who has so openly displayed the ugliest face of imperialism without the slightest shame, would be willing to engage in dialogue grounded in equality and international law would be the height of naivety. As things stand, Cuba comes to the table at a steep disadvantage, with a noose around its neck and a gun to its head. Little, if anything, can be expected.
