- Even as the U.S. fights an expensive, losing war against Iran, Washington is setting its sights on Cuba as another potential target for regime change. The Trump administration is pressuring the island with an energy blockade and reportedly set up a covert task force to sow discord and usher in a new leader.
- Cuba poses no threat to the U.S.—certainly not one that justifies toppling its regime or starving its people of fuel. The limited extent to which Cuba cooperates with Russia and China on intelligence is encouraged by U.S. pressure, not some Cold War-era pact to advance a common ideology. Ironically, the White House's impulse to change Cuba's government is being driven by ideological motivations, not national security imperatives.
- Decades of a U.S.-imposed embargo and covert actions interfered in Cuba but failed to change the government in Havana. While Trump has sought to replicate the model used in Venezuela, the war in Iran shows that attempts at regime change can backfire badly. Some in the White House have assessed that Cuba's leadership, if overthrown, may only become more hardline—as in Iran.
- If it were to bomb or invade Cuba, the U.S. would risk the kind of ugly quagmire it has repeatedly encountered in the Middle East. Given Cuba's proximity to the U.S., the fallout could be even more harmful at home, potentially resulting in increased refugee flows or violence throughout the region—creating new risks for American citizens rather than alleviating them.
- The Trump administration aborted Obama's moves to normalize relations with Cuba, including cooperation on intelligence and law enforcement against narcotics trafficking. Those efforts were more consonant with U.S. interests. If the administration opposes normalization, they could instead simply practice indifference, letting the example of the U.S. political and economic system influence Cuba rather than accelerating a futile and likely counterproductive push to force the issue.
- Given how badly US efforts to strongarm Iran have gone, the US should avoid a similar outcome in Cuba, and instead move toward normalization of relations, lifting of the decades-long embargo, and cooperation on trade and law enforcement.
Learn more with a DEFP explainer: Move on from Washington's outdated Cuba policy |
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